Guest post by Adam Victor, ProZ.com Trainer and Speaker · 5 min read
RESILIENCE & AI
The Guardian asked whether translation will survive as a profession. But that’s only part of the question.
IN THE NEWS TODAY
‘Being human helps’: despite rise of AI is there still hope for Europe’s translators? — The Guardian
The Guardian ran a piece this morning that will have landed in many inboxes with a thud. Translators losing work. Rates at 60 cents a line. Post-editing jobs that take as long as translating from scratch — and pay a fraction as much. The numbers are real, the anxiety is real, and nobody is pretending otherwise.
But here’s what I noticed reading it: buried inside the fear was a different story trying to get out. The story of people who are still here, still working, still bringing something to the page that no algorithm has managed to replicate. The story of a profession that has survived every wave of disruption thrown at it — and is still standing.
There’s valuable information in that data, not least because to even ask that question is to acknowledge that the foundations of our profession are shifting sands.
I spent thirty years as a translator before retraining as a coach, and I made that move precisely because I could see AI coming. I still translate – it’s a profession I love – but I no longer have that once-overwhelming, identity-shaking feeling.
There are parallels between being a language professional and the way the human mind works. First: we are not the text, we are the translator: not the events that happen to us, the ones giving them meaning, and that interpretation can always be rewritten. Second: adversity is the plot twist before the breakthrough — every language professional reading today’s Guardian has already survived something hard, and that survival is not luck, it’s resilience. Third: clarity comes from stillness, not more noise – the best decisions I’ve ever made came from pausing, not accelerating, and that quality of quiet attentiveness is exactly what will carry us through this.
“The future enters into us, to be transformed in us, long before it happens.” — Rainer Maria Rilke
This week I did something that didn’t come naturally: I went to a networking event. In person. I’m sharing a short clip below because the discomfort I felt walking in – and how good I felt walking out – is exactly what these principles look like in practice. Wisdom, in my experience, so often points toward a thing we’ve tied ourselves up in knots trying to avoid.
SHORT VIDEO
The Guardian piece ends with a translator saying she isn’t afraid of AI — she’s afraid of the people who think AI can do her job. Hold that thought. And then ask yourself: what would it look like to build my future from a place of quiet confidence rather than reactive fear?
If this resonates, I’m running a short online group coaching course — Navigating Life and Work in Times of Change — for translators, interpreters, and language professionals. Three sessions, 60 minutes each. More inside-out than self-help. Drop me a line at adamvictorcoaching@gmail.com if you’d like to know more.
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