Harlequin France to Adopt AI Translation
The French Literary Translators Association (ATLF) and the collective En Chair et en Os (In the Flesh) have issued a press release claiming that Harlequin’s French division will transition to AI-generated translation.
The publisher, which operates under HarperCollins France, will begin collaborating with the external communications agency Fluent Planet, who will put texts through “automatic translation” software and subsequently recruit freelancers to post-edit the machine output in French, per the press release. The move follows similar announcements made by several publishers, including the U.K.-based Taylor & Francis. The trend has also been capitalized upon by such start-ups as GlobeScribe and Ailaysa, both of whom target backlist, “low-resource” languages.
“Book workers, publishing directors, readers: we must not accept ‘automatic translation’ getting its foot in the door of publishers,” ATLF and En Chair et en Os write. “We must reaffirm our unconditional attachment to human texts created by humans under dignified working conditions.”
