Translation organisations have been warning about the consequences of using generative artificial intelligence in creative industries since spring. The latest such intervention occurred on 6^th December when the European Council of Literary Translators’ Associations (CEATL) sent an official statement to the newly established European Commission for Technological Autonomy, Security and Democracy. Along with twelve other signatories from various creative associations, CEATL warned about the dangers that artificial intelligence poses to creative work, as well as existing rights violations, such as the non-transparent training of artificial intelligence using copyrighted content. The signatories encourage the Commission to develop an effective legal framework to protect authors, based on “extensive and democratic discussion”, to “preserve the rights and integrity of copyrighted works and personal data”. Such international pressure from organisations with aligned goals is an appropriate approach in a period of cultural commodification, devaluation and general inflation, and Croatian translators are no exception.

While devising strategies to overcome each of the hydra’s heads, translators serve as an example that, even in the shadow of artificial intelligence, violated rights and unfair opportunities, human creativity and resourcefulness never cease to develop.

Last month at a conference in Strasbourg, translator Ela Varošanec Krsnik spoke about the specific obstacles that artificial intelligence could present to translators. As a member of the board of the Croatian Literary Translators’ Association (DHKP) and a member of CEATL’s Working Group on Artificial Intelligence, she joined international colleagues in a panel that largely reflected the warnings of the dispatched statement: the use of artificial intelligence without understanding what it can and cannot do could impoverish language long-term and endanger the translation profession. A legal framework is needed to regulate it based on principles of author consent, compensation, and transparency.

Artificial intelligence could indeed present a problem for the future development of the translation profession in Europe and contribute to poor pricing standards. Mišo Grundler, translator and vice-president of DHKP, emphasises in conversation with H-Alter that this fear isn’t unfounded: “In countries like the Netherlands, Norway and Denmark, large publishing houses have begun experimenting with publishing foreign literary works using artificial intelligence, which either relegates translators to the role of correctors of artificially generated text or completely marginalises and excludes them from the process of publishing literary works. A machine can convey information, but it misses everything that makes that information art.”

As industry trends of increasingly frequent insistence on post-editing machine translations show, machines directly influence the lowering of prices and translators’ working conditions. According to this year’s European Language Industry Survey (ELIS), “the use of machine translation is growing. At the current pace, it’s expected that some form of machine translation or artificial intelligence will be used in more than 50 percent of professional translations by 2025.” Although machine translation doesn’t guarantee a quality product, the picture of the technological future for translators, with artificial intelligence lurking in tomorrow, doesn’t appear optimistic.

However, in conversation with H-Alter, Varošanec Krsnik said that the threat of artificial intelligence is still far from Croatian translations: “Personally, I work with publishers who aren’t interested in having artificial intelligence do their translations, but, as far as I know from a survey DHKP recently conducted, nobody in Croatia is even receiving such offers yet. I think one of the reasons is that Croatian translators are already so cheap that I don’t know how much lower the price could go. We’re safe from artificial intelligence because we’re too cheap,” she joked.

Artificial intelligence in Croatia is, therefore, currently a matter for the future. It’s overshadowed by the very stagnation and decline in translation prices. According to ELIS, fear of artificial intelligence goes hand in hand with such trends, due to which freelance translators cannot achieve sustainable monthly incomes. The survey shows that translators in the freelance sector are insecure about their future on multiple levels: “This lack of security is strongly connected to the general decline in their financial position, but also to the effect of technology and the perceived dominance of language companies that force language specialists to accept less fulfilling and less paid work.” Translators thus deal with AI forecasts while simultaneously finding themselves in cycles of accumulating poorly paid work, because in a few days there might not be any work again. This vicious circle of inhuman working hours accompanied by miserable compensation is becoming an increasingly common occurrence in translation circles, and particularly affects the creative sectors of the profession.

Translators face a hydra of industrial obstacles - from unfair practices and price drops to ominous artificial intelligence.

In Croatia, the situation and anxiety follow European trends. Research by the Croatian Audiovisual Translators’ Association (DHAP) from 2022 shows that some respondents fear that machine translation will partially or completely replace them, and this existential crisis is compounded by the state of wages. Most respondents work 31 to 40+ hours weekly, for which 84 percent earn up to 20,000 euros annually, and 38.7 percent earn only 6,700. The situation is similar in literary and other translation domains. Grundler expresses the absurdity of the situation in fitting words: “This is probably the only profession where, amidst a general wave of price increases, rates are stagnating or even falling, which threatens the livelihood of those of us who live from translation.” According to ELIS, those who live from translation are part of a layered and enormous global industry, estimated at 25 to 60 trillion euros. Their service is paid in rates - per page, character, word, or minute of material - and between clients and translators there often stands a layer of agencies and other mediators with their own interests. Grundler explains that by the time funds trickle down through this system to translators, often not enough remains: “In any business where several instances are involved, each wants to extract the maximum benefit for themselves, which usually means some party ends up short-changed - and most often this breaks across the translator’s back. With agency translations, the client wants to pay as little as possible, the agency wants to charge the highest margin, and meanwhile translators are required to give up their piece of the pie, which isn’t sustainable long-term.” This is also indicated by ELIS results showing that “specialists who more frequently collaborate with direct clients noted [better] chances for increasing business and rates,” while translators working with mediators report the opposite.

The problem of the mediator layer is especially evident in the audiovisual sector, where agencies manage a large portion of the market. In conversation with H-Alter, DHAP president Sandra Mlađenović notices a pattern in the work of some of them: “Inexperienced people who are just entering the job market are swallowed by some agencies with a ’take it or leave it’ principle. They agree to it, but after some time realise it’s unsustainable and unfeasible. Then comes another wave of young and inexperienced people who don’t know how things stand, and these agencies exist on that basis. Some even have a conscious policy that they won’t pay a person, or will underpay them, and we move on to the next rotation.” In such conditions, translators often can’t afford to do quality work because they must accumulate as much as possible. They’re also limited by short delivery deadlines, forcing them into frantic hours and preventing quality work.

Similar to the audiovisual sector, current rates in the literary sector, which are calculated per page, fall to as low as 5 euros. “At the European level, literary translators are among the lowest-paid highly educated professions,” says Varošanec. She added that translating 100 pages takes her approximately a month and that a fee of 500 euros monthly would mean she couldn’t afford living expenses. However, market offers often have such demands: “People receive offers of one month for 300 pages. Working like that long-term isn’t humane, nobody’s capacities are like that. We can go beyond our capacities to a certain extent, but it’s not sustainable for anyone. These aren’t reasonable expectations.”

Life circumstances, Grundler emphasises, often impose unreasonable expectations as the only option: “This problem isn’t easy to address, because it’s an existential question - if your ability to pay utilities or rent for that month depends on it, you’re forced to accept even miserable work rates, which leads us to the vicious circle of precarity.” Such a situation is worsened by copyright violations, which in parts of Europe are protected and imply monetary compensation. Translators in Croatia are often offered contracts that involve lifelong waiver of copyrights, they aren’t credited on works, and new editions of their translations are published without their consent.

“Inexperienced people who are just entering the job market are swallowed by some agencies with a ’take it or leave it’ principle. After some time, they realise it’s unsustainable and unfeasible. Then comes another wave of young and inexperienced people...”

Translators, therefore, face a hydra of industrial obstacles - from unfair practices and price drops to ominous artificial intelligence. To overcome these obstacles, in Varošanec Krsnik’s words, “collective pressure is needed” and nobody expects change “overnight”. With this in mind, the increasing networking of organisations and broader activities of professional associations should be highlighted as a good sign. A large part of professional associations’ activities is therefore dedicated to raising translators’ awareness about their rights and the value of their work. Membership in DHKP and DHAP provides translators with tax relief rights, opportunities to attend professional workshops or accounting consultations, but also advocacy before institutions. According to Grundler, “thus, for example, it was agreed with the Ministry of Culture that priority for state incentives for literary creation goes to publishers who respect DHKP’s recommended prices, which ensures both translators’ livelihood and a quality product.” The audiovisual association has similar practices and plans. “DHAP will soon come out with recommendations for working conditions and rates to cover some basic categories and terms,” says Mlađenović. “Additionally, we’re developing a kind of calculator where translators can input the price they’re offered and see through different categories how much money that is per month, and compare it with the Croatian minimum wage or average salary to get an impression of what they’re actually being offered.” Along with working with local translators, associations actively network internationally with umbrella organisations like CEATL, Audiovisual Translators Europe, and the International Federation of Translators. Through such collaborations, Mlađenović emphasises, they fulfil their role “in international connection and information exchange,” and in “raising awareness among their members and the wider public about what rights we have.”

Implementing these rights in practice is the role of the newly established Regional Trade Union Branch of Translators within the Croatian Journalists’ Union, which potentially represents just the first sign of movement towards collective self-representation of Croatian freelancers. Although translators and journalists are currently the only unionised freelancers, Mlađenović - who also serves as the Branch leader - points out that “other freelance communities in the cultural sector are showing interest in unionisation.”

The door to such developments was opened by European Guidelines on Collective Agreements for Self-Employed Persons, which allow unions to determine minimum wages and working conditions for “freelancers.” This move represents a big step in the fight for freelance workers’ rights, and the example of translators shows us that this fight continues, as does collective pressure and the development of structures that will support it through joint advocacy and representation. While devising strategies to overcome each of the hydra’s heads, translators serve as an example that, even in the shadow of artificial intelligence, violated rights and unfair opportunities, human creativity and resourcefulness never cease to develop.

Julija Savić

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