Human-Centred AI in the Translation Industry: Questions on Ethics, Creativity and Sustainability

Wherever one looks in today’s language industry, one thing is certain: tools based on artificial intelligence (AI) are transforming workflows, reshaping communicative practices, and shifting power relations. This inevitably raises questions of responsibility: Who decides what AI is allowed to do—and who bears the consequences? Who benefits from these technologies, and who faces their potential disadvantages or risks?

Such questions reach far beyond the technical sphere. They touch upon fundamental ethical, political, and social issues, resonating strongly within current debates in translation and language studies. Automation affects not only technical processes but also the cultural and normative dimensions of theory and practice. These developments challenge us to rethink what creativity, agency, and responsibility mean in an increasingly automated linguistic world. For translation studies in particular, this entails challenges that should not be underestimated.

Authors in this volume: Marco Agnetta, Ibrahim Badshah, Stefan Baumgarten, Harun Dalli, Olgun Dursun, Sabri Gürses, Tunga Güngör, Susanne Hagemann, Ena Hodzık, Roberto Laghi, Robert Lukenda, Viera Pirker, Mehmet Şahin, Peter Scherle, P. Shyma, Elisabeth Tamegger, Rut Twardon, Katharina Walter.

Table of Contents / Inhaltsverzeichnis

INTRODUCTION ZUR EINFÜHRUNG

• KATHARINA WALTER, MARCO AGNETTA, Automated Translation, Creativity and Ethics: General Considerations
• KATHARINA WALTER, MARCO AGNETTA, Automatisierte Übersetzung, Kreativität und Ethik: Allgemeine Überlegungen

ESSAYS AUFSÄTZE

• STEFAN BAUMGARTEN, Welcome to the Machine? Prolegomena zu einer kritischen Translations- wissenschaft in Zeiten ungebremster Maschinisierung
• ROBERT LUKENDA, RUT TWARDON, From an “Experience of the Foreign” to an Experience of Alienation? Translating in the Age of AI
• ROBERTO LAGHI, From Human to Binary and Back: On the Need to Explain and Understand Digital Machines in the Humanities
• SUSANNE HAGEMANN, Skopos as a Source of Human Creativity in an AI Environment
• MEHMET ŞAHIN, ENA HODZIK, SABRI GÜRSES, TUNGA GÜNGÖR, ZEYNEP YIRMIBEŞOĞLU, OLGUN DURSUN, HARUN DALLI, Stylistic Features and Creativity in Machine Translation of Literary Texts
• KATHARINA WALTER, Creativity in Human and AI-Enhanced Literary Translation: A Keylogging Experiment
• IBRAHIM BADSHAH, Reading Political Economy at the Level of the Sentence: Automated Translation and the Global South
• I. SHYMA, Translating Indigeneity: Adivasi Literature in the Age of AI

This volume partly reproduces the fifth issue of the Yearbook of Translational Hermeneutics.

Wherever one looks in today’s language industry, one thing is certain : tools based on artificial intelligence (AI) are transforming workflows, reshaping communicative practices, and shifting power relations. This inevitably raises questions of responsibility : Who decides what AI is allowed to do-and who bears the consequences? Who benefits from these technologies, and who faces their potential disadvantages or risks?
Such questions reach far beyond the technical sphere. They touch upon fundamental ethical, political, and social issues, resonating strongly within current debates in translation and language studies. Automation affects not only technical processes but also the cultural and normative dimensions of theory and practice. These developments challenge us to rethink what creativity, agency, and responsibility mean in an increasingly automated linguistic world. For translation studies in particular, this entails challenges that should not be underestimated.