We live in an increasingly digitized and interconnected world, and artificial intelligence-based tools have been all the rage as soon as they became available to the general public, establishing themselves as a powerful resource in many areas, including language and translation. ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, has amazed many in the way it has demonstrated that AI can be used to generate coherent text and even natural language conversations, going so far as to almost indistinguishably simulate a human being in the way they express themselves. This has led many to speculate that such a powerful tool is also capable of performing other linguistic tasks, such as converting complex content from one language to another. But can ChatGPT really replace a professional translation company and give us results of the same quality and reliability? Let's go and find out.
ChatGPT is an advanced language model developed by OpenAI, based on the transformer architecture, which is a type of neural network designed to process sequential data, such as natural language. Its design makes it particularly suitable for interpreting and generating text; it performs this task by analyzing the context of words or phrases given to it as input, and relying on the training it has received that consisted of interpreting a very wide range of data taken from the Internet. This allows it to generate responses that are often indistinguishable from those that a human being could provide, however natural and competent they may appear. However, there is a fundamental fact that is not intuitive, and that we might not grasp unless made explicit: as sophisticated and complex as ChatGPT is, it absolutely does not understand the meaning of the text it generates in the way a human being would. What it does is to use statistical models, which it applies to the word sequences it analyzed during its training to predict the most likely correct word sequence to use in response to an external input.
Because ChatGPT was exposed to examples of translations from one language to another during its training, it is generally able - as has been demonstrated - to translate simple sentences correctly and convincingly. However, this in no way means that it has been specifically trained to be a translator, and this makes all the difference as soon as we move on to more complex translations. However, translation is a very difficult and structured task, requiring both a theoretical knowledge of the grammar and vocabulary of the languages involved (data that ChatGPT could theoretically acquire, too) and a deep understanding of linguistic nuances, cultural contexts and idioms, all of which a system like ChatGPT cannot in any way guarantee to possess. This is especially evident as soon as we attempt to use it to translate texts of a technical, legal, or in any other way highly specialized nature: in these experiments we immediately notice how a professional human translator, with a deep understanding of both the source and target languages, is infinitely more reliable for carrying out these kinds of translations.
Professional translation companies offer a range of services beyond the literal translation of a text from one language to another. The professional translators they use have a fluent command of the languages they work with, a deep understanding of cultural and specialized contexts, and careful consideration for the tone, style, and meaning of the original text. This specific combination of skills and also specific sensitivities cultivated over time and with experience is what enables them to provide accurate, high-quality translations that respect the intent of the original text, and represents something that is currently absolutely not within the reach of AI systems such as ChatGPT.
There are at least two essential reasons why a professional translation company proves preferable to ChatGPT for document translation.
The first of these reasons concerns accuracy and context. A human translator is able to understand the context of a text, interpret idioms, and grasp cultural nuances. These are aspects of language that an AI system can easily misunderstand or overlook, since it interprets language based on statistical models, and not through true understanding. And to translate a text on which perhaps someone's health, or job, or profession depends, it is definitely important to make sure that there are no "abstract" elements that are ignored.
Second, professional translation companies often offer proofreading and quality control services. These services ensure that the translation is not only correct and accurate, which is the least that can be expected, but that it is also well written and free of grammatical or spelling errors. Systems such as ChatGPT may be able to generate texts that we generally might even find correct, but they are not immune to errors and have no built-in mechanism for correcting or reviewing the work done: entrusting the AI with a translation means diving in blindly, hoping that it will not make any errors that we are unable to notice, because otherwise these will not be corrected.
In conclusion, even with all the advances in artificial intelligence and natural language generation, when it comes to high-quality translations, professional translation companies remain the best choice. Not only do they offer a level of accuracy and contextualization that ChatGPT and Artificial Intelligence systems in general cannot (at least at present) match, but they also offer review and quality control services that further ensure the quality of the finished translation, and this represents a type of reliability that in important translations should be considered absolutely necessary.
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