Disruptive change is always polarizing

Here’s something I thought about a lot, while preparing my keynote for the recent National Association of Judiciary Interpreters & Translators (NAJIT) conference (the conference was great; I’m working on a writeup for my blog!).

💥Disruptive change is always polarizing💥

Here’s what I mean:
I recently talked to two interpreters with completely opposing views on remote interpreting.

Terp 1: “I hate it.” 👎 “To me, the human connection *is* the job. Being there in the heart of the action, getting a sense of the mood in the room, sitting at the table. With remote, we’re reduced to icons on the screen. Bad audio is a constant problem; we’re even asked to interpret for people who are in their cars, standing on a street corner, riding public transportation, and the client’s response is always the same: Sorry! Do your best with it!”

Terp 2: “Remote interpreting is, hands-down, the best thing that’s ever happened in my career.” 🌟 “In 2019, I was thinking of looking for another job. I was sick of being on the road all the time, and I wanted to start a family. With remote, I can work from home, and I have access to clients I never would have been able to work with before.”

This is to say, if we’re looking for consensus on any disruptive change, we’re unlikely to find it. I personally despise editing MT/AI-generated translations; the writing all sounds the same, and I find it mind-numbing. I’d much rather start from scratch. Yet I talk to a lot of translators who say, “Sure, MT requires a lot of editing. But if DeepL saves you even a third of the time it would take to start from zero, why wouldn’t you use it?”

To me, the key is realizing that not everyone thinks the way you think, and that we’re (mostly!) fortunate to live in an age where there are lots of ways to work as a language person!