Improving the MT Technology to Translator Dialogue

While we see that MT technology adoption continues to grow, hopefully because of clearly demonstrated benefits and measured production efficiencies, we still see that the dialogue between the technology developers / business sponsors and translators/post-editors is often strained, and communications can often be dysfunctional and sometimes even hostile.

While there is a growing volume of material on “how-to-use” the technology, much of this material is of questionable quality, there is still very little discussion about managing human factors around successful use of the technology. The growth of instant, do-it-yourself (DIY) tools only unleashes more low quality MT output into the world and there are translators who are expected to often edit (fix) very low quality MT output for a pittance. Getting good quality MT output requires real skill, expertise and preferably some considerable experience. The actual translator experience with “good MT” is not going to be so different from working with TM (though MT errors are quite different from TM errors) and is likely going to be very different from the negative experiences described in translator blogs.

The history of MT has indeed been filled with eMpTy promises beyond the real possibilities of the technology, and more recently we see lots of sub-par DIY systems built by mostly incompetent practitioners that do cause pain/fatigue/stress/frustration/anger to translators who engage or are somehow roped in to clean up the mess. This fact does not however lead to a conclusion that the outlook for MT is bleak and hopeless in my eyes. 

Rather, it suggests that MT must be approached with care and expertise, not just in terms of basic system development mechanics but also in terms of managing human expectations and ensuring that risks and rewards are shared amongst the key stakeholders, and that transparency and equity should be guiding principles for MT projects in general.

I don't expect that MT will replace human translators, but I do expect that for a lot of business translations with largely repetitive content with a  short shelf life, it will continue to make sense. Most of the corporate members of TAUS (who also pay for a lot human translation work) are driven to deploy MT because they are indeed faced with more volume and content that is very valuable for a few months but with little value after that. The basic business urgency requires that they explore other approaches to getting material translated. They have often done this independently of their key translation agencies who were very slow to catch on to this need. Many translators do not seem to realize that much of the content that MT focuses on is material that would simply NOT get translated if MT were not available and can sometimes create new human translation opportunity. It is not always a zero sum game. Also, while some MT advocates can be over-zealous at times I think very few are actually bent on deception and fraud as is sometimes claimed.

MT does bring about change in traditional work practices and can sometimes have adverse economic impact (especially when misused or incompetently used) on translators. In some ways MT technology is getting better, and in some “easy” language combinations even DIY initiatives can produce some kind of minimal production advantage. But really steering an MT system to make it work and respond in a way that it is an experience that professional translators want to repeatedly engage in, does take more skill than dumping data into an instant Moses system. Though the risk of running into incompetent MT practitioners is still high, we are seeing many more successful collaborations that show the potential and promise of this technology when it is properly used.

Much of the anger and even rage from the translator side is “passionately” stated in this blog post by Kevin Lossner. I will paraphrase some of his key objections and and other points I have heard in the broader translator community, at the risk of getting it wrong. The issues seem to be:

• Messages from industry gurus and from CSA &TAUS in particular about how the business of translation is changing and their vision of the impact of automation on translators,
• Messages from MT vendors (me included) about the value and urgency and benefits of using MT,
• The possible negative impact of MT on cognitive and professional skills of translators or just the general nature of post-editing work,
• The link between the professional work effort and the compensation,
• The degree of involvement in the development of MT systems,
• Lack of education and training related to MT,
• General professional respect.
• The overall commoditization impact on translation work.

It is clear to most of us who have had successful MT implementations that post-editing is not suitable for everybody. There are translators out there who have developed very keen expertise in some domains and can translate at speeds and quality levels that would be hard for most MT systems to match. But there are also many translators who will benefit from a well developed MT system in the same way that they may benefit from the use of translation memory and other CAT tools. When properly done, working with MT output is not so different from working with TM. The nature of the errors are different but MT can also respond and improve as corrective feedback is processed.  

We have already reached a point in time, where the reality is that we have more “rough” translation done by MT in a day than ALL humans do in a year. The free online MT engines are used about 250-500 million times a month, and while it may still be true that MT has not penetrated the professional translation world in a substantial way yet, MT is now commonly used by many French and Spanish translators going in and out of English, and probably many other language pairs too.  There are still some who question the veracity of the increasing volumes of information that companies must now translate to ensure global visibility for their products and services but many companies now understand that making more and more product related content multilingual is a key to international market success. 

The translator concerns listed above however do need attention, and should be addressed in some way by all those who wish to maximize the potential for successful MT initiatives. John Hagel has an interesting and somewhat bleak viewed essay on The Dark Side of Technology where he describes the combined impact of all the new digital technologies which include:

• A world of mounting performance pressure,
• An accelerating pace of change,
• Increasing uncertainty,
• Digital technologies are coming together into global technology infrastructures that straddle the globe and reach an ever expanding portion of the population. In economic terms, these infrastructures systematically and substantially reduce barriers to entry and barriers to movement on a global scale.

This is perhaps what is being felt both by individual translators and by translation agencies and thus we often see reactive behavior at both these levels. We see many adopt the zero sum game view of the world, and there is increasing short-sightedness and often a breakdown of trust.

While I do not have a definitive prescription for success in dealing with the human factors involved in an MT project,  I think it is possible to outline some factors that I have observed from partners like Advanced Language Translation that constitute what I consider are best practices.

It is important to understand that the better the MT system and it's output is, the better the ROI and translator/editor work experience. MT systems that can respond to the needs of professionals using it for real work are very different from ones where the users have no real control of what happens beyond putting some data in. So if I were to list some recommendations on how to approach these basic communication and trust issues I think they would include the following:

• Build the best MT system you can, which means it should never be done in a hurry and preferably developed by experts who can tune it and adjust it as needed in response to translator feedback.
• Manage expectations of all key stakeholders, especially with regard to the evolutionary nature of MT system development. It is not as easy as 1-2-3 and requires expertise and patience.
• Get MT systems up to an acceptable average quality level with the involvement of senior trusted translators before unleashing the system to a larger group of translators/editors.
• Involve Project Managers and senior translators in MT system development with experts so that you can build organizational intelligence and skills on specific data cleaning, data preparation and system assessment.
• Involve key translators in the rate setting process to establish fair and reasonable compensation rates that are trusted.
• Don’t involve translators who are fundamentally opposed to MT technology. There are translators who do not benefit from MT because of very special and unique skill sets.
• Provide specific examples of corrections for a variety of different types of output errors for post-editors to model.
• Ensure that the nature of the task is understood and compensation issues are clear BEFORE setting production deadlines.
• Focus on fixing high frequency error patterns with a small test team and test data set before general release.
• Feed back error corrections and ask for general feedback from editors on an ongoing basis and incorporate as much of this into the system as possible. Monitor ongoing progress to ensure that MT system remains consistent over the project and over time.  
• Retune and retrain the MT engine quickly and as frequently as possible.
• Develop deeper system tuning skills over time as key team members begin to understand how the system responds to various kinds of feedback and corrective adjustments.

What more can be done to make post-editing MT work better understood and thus hopefully a less threatening or demeaning technology?  I see PEMT as a natural evolution of the business translation process. It is simply a new approach that enables new information to be translated, or a new way to do repetitive tasks but it can also be a means to build and develop strategic advantage. A guest post on the TAUS site has made a plea for translator education (not training), but I think it unlikely that the recommendations given there will solve the problems I have listed above. 

The most successful translators and LSPs all seem to be able to build “high trust professional networks”, and I suspect that this will be the way forward i.e. collaboration between Enterprises, MT developers, LSPs and translators who trust each other. Actually quite simple but not so common in the professional translation industry.

I feel compelled to re-use a quote I have used before because I think it fits very well in this current context.

“Disruption is not something we set out to do. It is something that happens because of what we do,” stresses Brian Solis. Disruption changes human behavior (think: iPhone) and it’s a mixture of both ‘design-thinking and system-thinking’ to get there. So as an innovator, where do you begin if you don’t start with attempting disruption. To boil down Solis’ message into a word: ‘empathy.’ That’s right, empathy. Empathy drives the core of your vision as an innovator, or so it should says Solis.
Solis says that there are only two ways to change human behavior, by manipulating people, or by inspiring them. If you choose the former, good luck on your journey, but if you would prefer to attempt the latter with your innovative attempts, then you should start with empathy: the why of your product or company. That is how you will capture attention, and hold onto it, especially in the technologically, socially-driven world today.”

The excerpt above is from this post on The future of innovation is disruption (emphasis mine).

“The end of business as usual takes more than vision and innovation to survive digital Darwinism however. It requires a tectonic shift from product or industry focus to that of long-term consumer (customer) experiences. Businesses that don’t are forever caught in a perpetual cycle of competing for price and performance. It is in fact one of the reasons that Apple can command a handsome premium. The company delivers experiences that contribute to an overall lifestyle and ultimately style and self-expression. Think about the business model it takes to do so however. You can’t invent or invest in new experiences if your business is fixated on roadmaps and defending aging business models (SDL & LIOX?).”

This excerpt is from a fascinating article on the collapse of the Japanese consumer electronics industry and especially Sony, Panasonic and Sharp.

The way forward in developing win-win scenarios and excellence in these challenging times is collaboration between trusted partners. Collaboration curves hold the potential to mobilize larger and more diverse groups of participants to innovate and create new value. In trusted relationships and networks critical knowledge flows happen more easily. Benefits and risks are shared more willingly and together participants are driven by a desire to learn and reach new levels of performance. In this context, zero sum relationships that focus on dividing a fixed pie of rewards evolve into positive sum relationships where participants are driven by the opportunity to expand the overall pie.  When there is a real prospect of expanding rewards, we are much more likely to trust others than when everyone is focused on how to get a bigger share of a fixed pie. I think it is also likely that agencies that regard translators as valued partners in a demonstrable way at an organizational level, will likely lead the innovation and evolution of how business translation gets done.  Hegel says also that a new narrative based on opportunity is needed.

Like any great narrative, it must be crafted.  “Craft” is an evocative term because it suggests that narratives are not just created on paper, but built through the actions that we begin to take as we start to see the opportunity ahead. Narratives emerge through action and interaction as we collectively begin to sense an opportunity and learn through action what it will take to achieve that opportunity.

No single person can be responsible or create this collaboration, trust and opportunity narrative and I look forward to seeing those who do help carve a path for all to learn from. Revolutions often happen from many small acts (balls) that are set into motion, rolling together in the same direction gradually building momentum and some revolutions happen slowly after some initial sputtering and misfiring.