A huge barrier to trade, business, human interaction, and migration is language. It is often not that easy for us to communicate with people from around the world because we don’t know their language.

However, with the advancements in technology, and artificial intelligence – machines, and softwares are getting better, and better at translating. Yes, Technology, and AI are helping us break this barrier of language.

The amalgamation of Artificial intelligence, and Translation has given birth to AI-powered translation tools. These tools are nothing but efficient, intelligent, and easy-to-use softwares that help us translate text, words, sentences, documents, and even websites from one language to another.

In this post, we are going to explore what AI Translators really are. This post will help you understand the concept of AI Translators, and how they are used in the real world. Let’s begin.

What is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

Before discussing about AI Translators, let us first discuss about Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The term was first coined by John McCarty in 1956 at the Dartmouth Conference, where he defined it as “the science, and engineering of making intelligent machines”.

Just as the name suggests, artificial intelligence is a technique of providing machines, and softwares a basic form of “intelligence” so that they work, and behave like humans or become capable of performing certain tasks on their own.

It is a wide-ranging field that aims at building smart machines that are capable of performing tasks that may otherwise require human intelligence, and of getting machines, and softwares to mimic the intelligent behavior of humans, such as that of logical reasoning, intelligent analysis, and decision making.

However, AI is unable to completely mimic human behavior, such as that of consciousness, and emotionality. Nevertheless, with the help of AI, we have created so many softwares, machines, and robots which have made a variety of tasks in the fields like healthcare, business, marketing, and so on… easier, and much efficient.

Many of us lack a detailed sense of what AI actually is. Whenever we think about AI, we start thinking of super-powered robots, and androids. If you make a quick google search on artificial intelligence, you will find thousands of images of robots, and androids.

But the truth is, AI is not just about robots. Its usage has become so much prevalent, in so many things we use that we don’t realize we use it all the time.

AI is used extensively in the real world. Google’s AI-Powered Predictions, Plagiarism Checkers, Social Networking Sites, Online Shopping, and even Ridesharing Apps like Uber use AI.

From space exploration, and image Recognition softwares, to face recognition in your phones, virtual assistants like Alexa, Siri, and Cortana, and surgical robots, AI has covered all possible domains in the market. Thus, we can say AI covers a vast domain of fields.

And, the field of language processing, and translation is no exception!

What are AI Translators?

As is obvious by the name, AI-powered translators are translation tools that make use of artificial intelligence. They are able to translate words, sentences, documents, and even whole websites from one language to another. And, many of them are also able to translate the meaning of the message, and not just words.

Many big organizations around the world, such as Facebook, have started using artificial intelligence in their language. This intersection of AI, and language translation is helping people, and businesses around the world to communicate well with each other, tap into new audiences, and also grow internationally.

Earlier, Translator tools used to make word-to-word translations. This left a huge space for mistranslations, and errors. Thanks to the advancements in the field, and the creation of neural machine translation, Digital Translators are getting better day-by-day.

These tools provide so many handy features. Many of them come with AI voice recognition, which helps you speak what you want to translate, and the tool will analyze the language, and translate it into your desired language.

Another interesting feature is a camera mode that helps you translate texts from pictures, and photographs. Some tools, like Google Translate, even allow you to just hover or point your camera at the text you want to translate, and the job is done in a matter of seconds.

Some good examples of translation tools are Google Translate, Yandex Translate, Linguee, and Memsource. Some have their dedicated software or website, while others also offer a mobile application. If you want to learn more about the best translation apps for your android device, feel free to check out this post.

However, it is important to realize that even though these tools are greatly efficient, they cannot compete with human cognitive capabilities. These translation tools can handle simple tasks, and help us save time, and money, but cannot completely eliminate the need for human translators.

Sometimes, the translations made by these tools are incomprehensible, inaccurate, and even misleading, and potentially damaging. These tools are generally not well versed with the various meanings a word can have depending upon the sentence. This leads to inaccuracy, and misleading outputs.

Nevertheless, they have a lot of advantages that we are going to discuss in the next section.

Advantages of AI Translators

AI Translators are fast and help you Save Time

Most AI-powered translators are fast, and produce instant translations in a matter of seconds. This means that they help you save a lot of time in translating text from one language to another.

AI Translators Support a Variety of Languages

AI Translators generally support a variety of languages that are used by people worldwide. For instance, Google Translate supports 109 languages. Thus, you have a huge roaster of languages to choose from. However, the number of languages supported vary according to the translator.

AI Translators are usually Free

Most of the AI translators are available for free online. You can either use their website or use their dedicated application that is available for a variety of platforms like Android, iOS, Windows, Linux, etc. Thus, they help you save money.

Moreover, they are easy to use, and are easily accessible online, so you can use them easily without needing any professional help.

AI Translators Efficiency and Accuracy is improving

Like we previously mentioned, AI translators are not 100% reliable. However, their accuracy, and efficiency is improving with the new advancements in the field of machine learning, and translation.

For example, Google Translate, one of the best AI translators, now uses a neural machine translation engine that leads to more accurate, and relevant translations, and is producing a more natural output.

Similarly, other AI tools are catching up, and are regularly providing new updates, and features.

Conclusion on AI Translators

In today’s world, AI is everywhere, and it has touched almost every aspect of our day-to-day lives, including Translation. In this post, we discussed about how the intersection of AI, and translation is a great, and a handy tool for our translation needs.

Translation is very important, whether you are a student or a working professional, or a business preparing to take your website to an international level. It is important for tourists, and even in the corporate world, where we often communicate with people from other countries who do not speak our language.

AI Translators help us eliminate all our worries. However, they still have a long way to go. AI translators cannot rival human translators, as they cannot communicate with their translations – the essence, the emotion, the basic feel of the message that they translate.

However, the recent developments in the concerned field have assured us that AI translators are significantly improving with every passing day, and they are in no way on their way out.

So, that’s it for this post. What is your opinion about AI translators? Have you ever used any of these translators that we discussed about? Let us know in the comment section down below. And, don’t forget to check out our blog for most posts related to the digital side of our lives!