When I saw the post on LinkedIn from a seasoned colleague who decided that his sharing of approaches to problems in translation should be withdrawn and discontinued, it had a special significance to me, as some might imagine. Over the past 24 years I have produced many technical guides to help colleagues and clients, more than a thousand articles and hundreds of videos, not to mention many hundreds of hours in personal assistance, a lot of pro bono. Am I raising false hopes in doing so, and should all of that tutorial content be deleted from public spaces?
I have questioned what I do so many times, in many ways, almost since I began. Significant others in my life have often taken offense and the time I “waste” producing helpful content and sharing ideas. For a time, I found myself hiding upstairs in the library to write PDF tutorial guides, forum contributions and early blog posts and avoid the stress of her regard, though even there my original copy signed by the author confronted me.
I’ve heard enough demands, even screams, to the effect that I should be charging, or charging more. And often I’ve wondered if I should remove old material about deprecated versions of software, only to be thanked by someone with an old version of some translation support tool for sharing what they needed when the latest first-level support staff could only say help is no longer available and they must upgrade.
But never did it occur to me I might be raising false hopes. Heaven forefend!
Is there merit to that argument? I have been criticized for providing technical solutions that give unqualified idiots the impression that they might be able to succeed as translators, when my intent was simply to provide the means for individuals or companies to overcome technical barriers and bring their best linguistic skills and good process sense to bear. I leave the judgment of whether they have any of these to others, and to the market results.
The colleague who has decided to remove his content does so against the background of the great turmoil in language service professions at present. The changes are undeniable no matter how uneven the distribution of their effects may presently be, though I would say the window through which we look toward the future and assess the meaning and ultimate outcome of current events remains impossibly dark. as such windows often do.
Stephen Fry shared examples of historic failures to understand the import of new things and change, some of them in our lifetimes, and those of us who consumed serial fare such as The Jetsons along with our breakfast cereal know too well that our bright futures usually blind us to the potholes and forks in the roads we travel.
A year ago I was asked to speak to a university course on the importance of artificial “intelligence”, and I gently suggested that if they expected me to cheerlead the rush to application, I am perhaps not a good choice of speaker, and that in the growing giddy gallop toward AI in all things I’m like to spoil the course.
We see now the backlashes against ill-considered use of AI. These largely support my early concerns, but I cannot tell you their significance for a five-year plan, much less any planning farther out. We ride the wave as best we can, hope we anticipate the swells and currents in the moment and avoid the wipeout that is the usual outcome for those who consider themselves a greater force than Nature.
I’m not qualified nor arrogant enough to tell you what’s ahead past a very, very short horizon. We stand at the foot of great mountains, with uncharted lands beyond. All I know is that every map drawn by those not returned from those future journeys is surely nonsense, and even dangerously so perhaps.
So for now, I’ll plant my apple trees. And post the little things I hope might help a few finish the day with less trouble in their minds.
Those who always strive to do the right thing or to understand the swirls of the currents in which we swim are not always saved, but their chances of drowning may be less when human voices wake them.