AI is taking over the world, or is it?

Claire:Hello! Thanks for tuning in to 5minutes with AOPA-China . Today I’m honored to have two guests here. Oh youtwo, would you please introduce yourself a little bit?

 

Mingwei: Sure. I’m Mingwei,from ICSCC. I’m an interpreter.

 

Sun: I’m Sun Xinyu. I’m also atranslator and interpreter.

 

Claire:Right now we have this very hottopic of AI and people are worried their job will be replaced by those robots.So what’s your opinion about that?

 

Mingwei: Indeed I think this is a questionthat we cannot escape. Because robots and computers have a lot of advantages.They have very low cost and very high speed . But to my personal point of view,AI can only replace those boring jobs so that humans can spend more time withhigh level tasks which require more critical thinking.

 

Sun:Yes totally agree, it may be justeasier for AI to replace those repetitive and standardized work because AI ismore about matchmaking and copy and paste.

 

Claire: While you mentioned copy and paste,how about this list of those jobs that will be replaced by AI and among themthere are translator and interpreter. How do you feel about that?

 

Mingwei: For interpreting and translation,we are quite confident that we won’t be replaced.

 

Sun: Yes, for example, if you are talkingabout translation, there are always different types of text, some like the UNdocument with certain formula on the certain topic containing large amount oftones, they are easy for AI to process and translate but others like poems,that’s another extreme. They involve very creative use of language, they willrequire human translators first to understand meaning.

 

Mingwei: Yes, meaning, what translator andinterpreter do is actually to translate the meaning instead of words. A deeperlayer of language should be conveyed by us. This is what computers cannot do. Alot of people think that translating and interpreting is a skill but actuallyit’s more like an art. Computers can play the skill but not the arts.

 

Claire: I think there is one thing that isvery underrated, the word “communication”. Everybody’s thinks thatcommunication is about the message forward and back. But actually as you guystalked about, communication is the exchange of meanings or thoughts ,not onlythe words. That’s very important. And while we are in this aviation circle, aquite exclusive circle comparatively speaking because altogether the populationso large, but the people who are involved in aviation industry do not accountfor a large part, so what do you feel working exclusively for the aviationtranslation and interpreting?

 

Mingwei: For me, I think I can say thiswith very clear consciousness that aviation interpreting is difficult becauseyou always need to get to know new things and walk out of your comfort zone,but it is motivating at the same time because as an interpreter, not in theaviation sector, we say that you need to understand something about everything, to be Jack of all trades. So I think it’s difficult but it’s a good jobactually.

 

Claire: Good to know. And I think there aremany majors in universities especially those civil aviation universities. Theyare nurturing translators and interpreters to-be for this industry, and whatkind of knowledge they need to gain before they are ready to be a translatorand interpreter in aviation industry.

 

Sun: Like translation and interpreting ofall kinds of industries, it requires both knowledge and language, thereforereliable bilingual materials can be very efficient tools so if you want to knowsomething about global civil aviation, you can always read the ICAOpublications, the annexes. They are in 6 languages including Chinese and theytarget specific fields of civil aviation, the terminology is separately listed.If you want to know something about civil aviation in China, I can recommendthe China civil aviation annual report, it’s the annual summary of civilaviation development in China written by CAAC departments, it’s also bilingual.But if you are looking for more convenient ways to do some fragmented learning,you can follow our official WeChat account, 中国民用航空局国际合作服务中心.There is a civil aviation knowledge tips section where short articles in bothChinese and English are shared on the regular bases. A quick ad, our center isICAO approved distributor of its Chinese and English language publication inChina. If you want to buy those ICAO publications or the China civil aviationannual report, you can always contact us.

 

Claire:Here is the right place to go. Ok,thanks for being with us in this episode. This is 5 Minutes with AOPA-China andICSCC. See you next time.

 

 

 

中文概述：

说到民航界的职业，大家的第一反应可能是在天上飞的机组人员，或是在地面保障的地勤人员。其实还有另一小众的工作：民航翻译。

这一期，我们便采访了民航局国际合作服务中心的两位译员，明唯和孙心宇。她们不仅谈论了当下的热门话题“人工智能是否会取代翻译这个职业”，也表达了作为一名民航翻译的切身感受。小编很是羡慕她们的工作状态。

对于期望在民航就业的语言工作者和在校学生，明唯和心宇也给出了一些学习方面的建议：一手抓语言，一手抓行业知识。如阅读国际民航组织的附件和出版物，了解世界民航的发展状况和行业规则。这些材料被译成了包括中文在内的六种语言，专有名词和术语也单独罗列了出来，对了解行业知识和学习翻译都很有帮助。

如果要了解中国民航的发展，可以阅读《中国民航年刊》，它是民航局唯一正式的官方出版物，且是中英文对照的。小编感觉发现了宝藏！

另外，中心负责国际民航组织出版物在中国的推广工作，上述资料都可以在中心购买。