Ποιος θα επιζήσει της 5η Βιομηχανικής Επανάστασης: ο αυτόματος ή ο επαυξημένος διερμηνέας;

Περίληψη

In an inspired speech on how AI impacts the future of work (Griffin 2024), up to 80% of humans is foreseen to become less employable by 2030, with a high number of skills and, thus, professionals being actually replaced by AI (BBC 2018); the only professionals to survive this change will be hand labourers (Griffin 2024). In this new landscape, how is the interpreting profession expected to be affected? Following similar trends in translation, computer-assisted interpreting (CAI) (Fantinuoli 2018, Corpas Pastor 2018, Defrancq & Fantinuoli 2020) has been growing over the past ten to fifteen years and reached a decisive peak after the Covid-19 pandemic (Song 2021). The augmented interpreter is indeed the new trend with augmented reality (AR) technology being used in the booth to display numbers and names on a screen or automatically suggest renditions for technical terms (Beliakova 2025, Gieshoff et al. 2024). Does AR actually work out well with interpreters? The findings of two surveys among conference interpreters regarding  the interpreters’ readiness to embrace digital technologies and artificial intelligence (Chiaming 2024) indicate a cautious opening by interpreters towards the new technology (Fan 2024, Petrocheilou 2025).