Globe editorial: Ottawa’s AI push must translate into savings [translation]

Other areas ripe for AI use are the overhead functions of HR and Finance:

…That is a good thing. Translators are no strangers to machines; they’ve been using computer tools for decades. But they have often warned that the programs are imperfect and nowhere near good enough to replace them. “At times, a ChatGPT translation will make sense,” Joachim Lépine, co-founder of LION Translation Academy in Sherbrooke, Que. wrote in a LinkedIn post this month. But “’sometimes useful’ is not good enough for high-stakes situations. Only humans have professional judgment. Period.”

However, new generative AI tools are rapidly improving in quality and are good enough to competently handle routine translations of mundane texts such as policy documents, press releases or memos. The more the programs learn from the language fed into them, the better they should become – although more critical documents such as laws and court rulings should continue to be handled by humans.

A centrepiece of the bureau’s rethink is its AI project, a program called PSPC Translate, which draws from the government’s data and language storehouse. It could serve as a bellwether for further government efficiencies and savings using AI. True success would be if the initiative translated into real savings and allowed government to slash the size of the bureau. 

Source: Ottawa’s AI push must translate into savings