“难在自觉，贵在坚持”

今天上午，我国翻译界泰斗、被誉为“诗译英法唯一人”的许渊冲先生逝世，享年100岁。

“生命并不是你活了多少日子，而是你记住了多少日子，你要使你过的每一天，都值得记忆。”

千山鸟飞绝，万径人踪灭。

孤舟蓑笠翁，独钓寒江雪。

From hill to hill no bird in flight,

From path to path no man in sight.

A lonely fisherman afloat

Is fishing snow in lonely boat.

——许渊冲译《江雪》

无注释原文：

Will Machine Learning AI Make Human Translators An Endangered Species?

Forbes

Translating between human languages is something which artificial intelligence – specifically machine learning – has proven to be very competent at.

So much so that the CEO of one of the world’s largest employers of human translators has warned that many of them should be facing up to the stark reality of losing their job to a machine.

One Hour Translation CEO Ofer Shoshan told me that within one to three years, neural machine technology (NMT) translators will carry out more than 50% of the work handled by the $40 billion market.

His words stand in stark contrast to the often-repeated maxim that, in the near future at least, artificial intelligence will primarily augment, rather than replace, human professionals.

Shoshan told me that the quality of machine translation has improved by leaps and bounds in recent years, to the point where half a million human translators and 21,000 agencies could soon find themselves out of work.

He says, "Two years ago, translation technology would produce something that at best would let you get a general understanding of what the text was about – but in most cases, a professional translator would tell you they would rather just translate from scratch because they couldn't understand a lot of the output.

“Today with neural machines, for a growing amount of material and categories, they only need to make a very small number of changes to what a machine outputs, in order to get a human-quality translation.”

Quantifying this, Shoshan tells me that today on average 10% of a machine-translated document needs to be fine-tuned by humans to meet the standards expected by his company's Fortune 500 clients. Just two years ago, that figure was around 80%.

This has been made possible by the switch to neural machine translation – sometimes known as deep learning – adopted by the most advanced machine translation tools. Previously these relied on a method known as statistical translation. Google, Bing, and Amazon now all use NMT in their translation engines.

Training a neural machine to translate between languages requires nothing more than feeding a large quantity of material, in whichever languages you want to translate between, into the neural net algorithms.

To adapt to this rapid transformation, One Hour Translation has developed tools and services designed to distinguish between the different translation services available, and pick the best one for any particular translation task.

This work – comparing the quality of the output of NMT generated translation, gives a clue as to how human translators could see their jobs transforming in coming years. Humans rate the output of each engine and compile the index. In the case of One Hour Translation's index, this is done once per quarter, to reflect the speed at which NMT is evolving, and new players are emerging onto the market.

The level of training and expertise required to rate machine translations, or to translate while “augmented” by a machine, is far lower than for traditional, “from scratch” translation.

“You need someone smart, with good language skills – but they don’t need to be a professional, traditionally-trained translator, because fixing one word here or there is much easier,” says Shoshan.

So, as was the case during the first industrial revolution, are we likely to see gangs of translators rioting in the streets and smashing up the intelligent machines which are threatening their livelihoods?

"I hope not," Shoshan says. "But actually, it is an issue, just like autonomous trucking will be an issue for the four million or so truck drivers employed in the US.

"And importantly, we're not talking about five to ten years; we're talking one to three years.

“It’s obvious that if machines can do what you can do, then you have a problem. A lot of translators and agencies will tell you that there are certain highly specialized translation services which will require a human touch for the foreseeable future – and that may be true.

“But for the bulk – I would estimate 80% - of the material that corporate customers pay to have translated on the market today, it will be machine translatable in the next one to three years.”

Some advice for translators wanting to keep their heads above water could include specializing in languages which are less widely spoken. NMT services rely on huge bodies of literature being available, to train the algorithms – and for languages with a smaller user base, that quantity of material may not be readily available, particularly in specialist, technical or scientific subjects.

Another, as is the case with One Hour Translation, could be to get used to working alongside machines. While they will do the bulk of the work, there will be a need for people able to assess different translation technology and apply the correct tools for specific jobs.

One thing seems certain, however - hiding your head in the sand and pretending that none of this is happening is a recipe for unemployment.

- ◆ -

注：中文文本为机器翻译仅供参考，并非一一对应

含注释全文：

Will Machine Learning AI Make Human Translators An Endangered Species?

Forbes

Translating between human languages is something which artificial intelligence – specifically machine learning – has proven to be very competent at.

事实证明，人工智能--特别是机器学习--非常擅长做的就是人类语言之间的翻译。

So much so that the CEO of one of the world's largest employers of human translators has warned that many of them should be facing up to the stark reality of losing their job to a machine.

以至于世界上最大的人工翻译雇主之一的首席执行官警告说，他们中的许多人应该面对失去工作给机器的严峻现实。

表示“接受，正视（困境）”，英文解释为“to accept that a difficult situation exists”举个🌰：

She's going to have to face up to the fact that he's not going to marry her.

她将不得不接受他不会娶她这一事实。

One Hour Translation CEO Ofer Shoshan told me that within one to three years, neural machine technology (NMT) translators will carry out more than 50% of the work handled by the $40 billion market.

一小时翻译公司（One Hour Translation）首席执行官奥弗·肖山（Ofer Shoshan）告诉我，在一到三年内，神经机器技术（NMT）翻译将承担400亿美元的市场中50%以上的工作。

*注：本文发布于Aug 24, 2018. 结合语境，看看2年后的今天是这样的吗？

表示“神经的；神经系统的”，英文解释为“involving a nerve or the system of nerves that includes the brain ”举个🌰：

Some people suffered severe neural damage as a result of the disease.

有些人罹患这种疾病后神经受到严重损伤。

His words stand in stark contrast to the often-repeated maxim that, in the near future at least, artificial intelligence will primarily augment, rather than replace, human professionals.

他的话与经常听说的格言形成鲜明对比，即至少在不久的将来，人工智能将主要增强而不是取代人类专业人士。

1）表示“（对比）明显的，鲜明的”，英文解释为“If two things are in stark contrast to one another, they are very different from each other in a way that is very obvious.”如：stark differences 鲜明的区别，举个🌰：

The good weather was in stark contrast to the storms of previous weeks.

这时的好天气和前几个星期的暴风雨形成鲜明的对比。

2）表示“严酷的；赤裸裸的；真实而无法回避的”，英文解释为“unpleasant; real, and impossible to avoid”。

maxim /ˈmæksɪm/ 表示“格言；箴言；座右铭”，英文解释为“A maxim is a rule for good or sensible behaviour, especially one in the form of a saying.”举个🌰：

I believe in the maxim "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

我相信这句格言：“如果它没坏，不要去修理它。”

表示“提高；增大；加强”，英文解释为“to increase the size or value of something by adding something to it”举个🌰：

He would have to find work to augment his income.

他可能不得不找活儿干来增加收入。

Shoshan told me that the quality of machine translation has improved by leaps and bounds in recent years, to the point where half a million human translators and 21,000 agencies could soon find themselves out of work.

肖山告诉我，近年来机器翻译的质量有了突飞猛进的提高，以至于50万名人类翻译和21,000家机构可能很快就会发现自己失去了工作。

表示“非常迅速地”，英文解释为“If someone or something gets better by/in leaps and bounds, he, she, or it improves very quickly.”举个🌰：

Her Spanish has come on (= improved) in leaps and bounds this year.

今年她的西班牙语水平提高得很快。

He says, "Two years ago, translation technology would produce something that at best would let you get a general understanding of what the text was about – but in most cases, a professional translator would tell you they would rather just translate from scratch because they couldn't understand a lot of the output.

“两年前，翻译技术产生的东西最多只能让你大致了解文本的内容--但在大多数情况下，专业翻译会告诉你，他们宁愿从头开始翻译，因为他们无法理解很多输出的内容。”

表示“从零开始”，英文解释为“If you do something from scratch, you do it without making use of anything that has been done before.”举个🌰：

Building a home from scratch can be both exciting and challenging. 

白手起家既激动人心又具有挑战性。

“Today with neural machines, for a growing amount of material and categories, they only need to make a very small number of changes to what a machine outputs, in order to get a human-quality translation.”

“今天的神经机器，对于越来越多的材料和类别，他们只需要对机器输出的内容进行非常少的改变，就可以得到人类质量的翻译。”

Quantifying this, Shoshan tells me that today on average 10% of a machine-translated document needs to be fine-tuned by humans to meet the standards expected by his company's Fortune 500 clients. Just two years ago, that figure was around 80%.

量化一下，肖山告诉我，今天平均有10%的机器翻译文件需要由人类进行微调，以达到他公司的财富500强客户所期望的标准。就在两年前，这个数字是80%左右。

表示“确定…的大小（或数量）”，英文解释为“to measure or judge the size or amount of something”举个🌰：

It's difficult to quantify how many people will be affected by the change. 很难确定将有多少人受到该变化的影响。

表示“对…进行微调”，英文解释为“to make very small changes to something in order to make it work as well as possible”举个🌰：

She spent hours fine-tuning her speech.

她花了好几个小时对自己的讲稿作细微的修改润饰。

This has been made possible by the switch to neural machine translation – sometimes known as deep learning – adopted by the most advanced machine translation tools. Previously these relied on a method known as statistical translation. Google, Bing, and Amazon now all use NMT in their translation engines.

这是因为最先进的机器翻译工具采用了神经机器翻译（NMT）--有时称为深度学习--而使之成为可能。在此之前，这些工具依赖于一种被称为统计翻译的方法。谷歌、必应和亚马逊现在都在其翻译引擎中使用NMT。

Training a neural machine to translate between languages requires nothing more than feeding a large quantity of material, in whichever languages you want to translate between, into the neural net algorithms.

训练神经机器进行语言间的翻译，只需要将大量的材料（无论你想在哪种语言间进行翻译）输入神经网络算法。

表示“供给；供应；（尤指规律地或连续地）把…放进（机器或系统）”，英文解释为“to supply something to a person or thing, or put something into a machine or system, especially in a regular or continuous way”举个🌰：

The images are fed over satellite networks to broadcasters throughout the world.

图像通过卫星网络传送给全世界的广播公司。

To adapt to this rapid transformation, One Hour Translation has developed tools and services designed to distinguish between the different translation services available, and pick the best one for any particular translation task.

为了适应这种快速的转变，“一小时翻译”已经开发了一些工具和服务，旨在区分不同的翻译服务，并为任何特定的翻译任务挑选最好的服务。

This work – comparing the quality of the output of NMT generated translation, gives a clue as to how human translators could see their jobs transforming in coming years. Humans rate the output of each engine and compile the index. In the case of One Hour Translation's index, this is done once per quarter, to reflect the speed at which NMT is evolving, and new players are emerging onto the market.

相比NMT生成的翻译的输出质量，这项工作为人工翻译在未来几年内看到他们的工作如何转变提供了线索。人类对每个引擎的输出进行打分并编制索引。就“一小时翻译”的索引而言，每季度进行一次，以反映NMT的发展速度，以及市场上出现的新参与者。

表示“汇编；编纂；编辑；编制”，英文解释为“to collect information from different places and arrange it in a book, report, or list”举个🌰：

We're compiling some facts and figures for a documentary on the subject.

我们正在为一部有关这个主题的纪录片汇编资料。

The level of training and expertise required to rate machine translations, or to translate while “augmented” by a machine, is far lower than for traditional, “from scratch” translation.

对机器翻译进行打分，或在机器“增强”的情况下进行翻译，所需的培训和专业知识水平远远低于传统的、“从头开始”的翻译。

“You need someone smart, with good language skills – but they don't need to be a professional, traditionally-trained translator, because fixing one word here or there is much easier,” says Shoshan.

“你需要一个聪明的人，具有良好的语言技能--但他们不需要是一个专业的、经过传统培训的翻译，因为在某个地方校正一个词要容易得多，”肖山说。

So, as was the case during the first industrial revolution, are we likely to see gangs of translators rioting in the streets and smashing up the intelligent machines which are threatening their livelihoods?

因此，正如第一次工业革命期间的情况一样，我们是否有可能看到一帮翻译在街上暴动，砸毁威胁他们生计的智能机器？

可以作动词，也可以作名词，表示“暴乱；骚乱；聚众闹事”，英文解释为“a noisy, violent, and uncontrolled public meeting”。

📍rioter 暴徒；暴民；骚乱者（one of a group of people who meet in a public place and behave in a noisy, violent, and uncontrolled way, often as a protest）

1）表示“打碎；破碎”，英文解释为“If you smash something or if it smashes, it breaks into many pieces, for example, when it is hit or dropped.”举个🌰：

Someone smashed a bottle.

有人打碎了一个瓶子。

2）表示“猛撞，猛冲，猛击（通常造成破坏或伤害）”，英文解释为“to cause something to move with great force against something hard, usually causing damage or injury”举个🌰：

He tried to smash the door down to get to me.

他试图将门撞倒来抓我。

"I hope not," Shoshan says. "But actually, it is an issue, just like autonomous trucking will be an issue for the four million or so truck drivers employed in the US.

“我希望不会，”肖山说。“但实际上，这是一个问题，就像自动驾驶卡车对美国雇佣的四百万左右的卡车司机来说将是一个问题。”

"And importantly, we're not talking about five to ten years; we're talking one to three years.

“而且重要的是，我们谈论的不是五到十年；我们谈论的是一到三年。”

“It's obvious that if machines can do what you can do, then you have a problem. A lot of translators and agencies will tell you that there are certain highly specialized translation services which will require a human touch for the foreseeable future – and that may be true.

“很明显，如果机器能做你能做的事，那么你就有问题了。很多翻译和机构会告诉你，在可预见的未来，有一些高度专业化的翻译服务将需要人类润色- 这可能是真的。”

熟词僻义，作名词，有“装点，润色”的意思，英文解释为“a small addition or detail that makes something better”举个🌰：

The speech had several comic touches.

这一演讲有几分滑稽色彩。

The flowers on the table provided the finishing touch.

桌上的花是最后一道点缀。

“But for the bulk – I would estimate 80% - of the material that corporate customers pay to have translated on the market today, it will be machine translatable in the next one to three years.”

“但是，对于大部分--我估计80%--企业客户今天在市场上付费翻译的材料，在未来一到三年内都可以用机器翻译。”

Some advice for translators wanting to keep their heads above water could include specializing in languages which are less widely spoken. NMT services rely on huge bodies of literature being available, to train the algorithms – and for languages with a smaller user base, that quantity of material may not be readily available, particularly in specialist, technical or scientific subjects.

对于想保持生计的译者来说，一些建议可以包括专门从事使用范围较小的语言。NMT服务依靠大量的文献资料来训练算法--对于用户群较小的语言来说，这种量级的资料可能不容易获得，特别是在专业、技术或科学领域。

表示“（尤指财务上）勉强应付过去，惨淡经营”，英文解释为“to just be able to manage, especially when you have financial difficulties”举个🌰：

The business is in trouble, but we are just about keeping our heads above water.

公司遇到了一些问题，但我们还得勉强应付下去。

Another, as is the case with One Hour Translation, could be to get used to working alongside machines. While they will do the bulk of the work, there will be a need for people able to assess different translation technology and apply the correct tools for specific jobs.

另一种情况，就像“一小时翻译”那样，可能是习惯于与机器一起工作。虽然它们将完成大部分工作，但仍需要有人能够评估不同的翻译技术，并为具体工作应用正确的工具。

表示“（某物的）主要部分，大半”，英文解释为“the main or largest part of something”举个🌰

The bulk of consumers are based in towns.

大多数消费者都是城镇居民。

One thing seems certain, however - hiding your head in the sand and pretending that none of this is happening is a recipe for unemployment.

然而，有一件事似乎是肯定的--逃避现实，假装这一切都没有发生，注定是要失业的。

类似的还有bury/have one's head in the sand，表示“逃避现实，不愿意面对现实”，英文解释为“To avoid, or try to avoid, a particular situation by pretending that it does not exist. The phrase refers to the common but mistaken belief that ostriches bury their heads in the sand when frightened, so as to avoid being seen.”举个🌰：

You've got to face facts here - you can't just bury your head in the sand.

在这里你必须面对现实——你不能逃避。

除了表示“食谱”，还可以指“方法；秘诀；诀窍”，英文解释为“a method or an idea that seems likely to have a particular result”举个🌰：

What's her recipe for success?

她成功的秘诀是什么？

- 推荐阅读 -

「才思汇」是什么？

我的2020年度报告

为了这个合集，准备了整整5个月。

2000天，我是怎么坚持下来的

写在六周年的话

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