Ghosts in the machine: Can adaptive MT help reclaim a place for the human in the loop?: Can adaptive MT help reclaim a place for the human in the loop?

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Title: Ghosts in the machine: Can adaptive MT help reclaim a place for the human in the loop?: Can adaptive MT help reclaim a place for the human in the loop?
Authors: Martikainen, Hanna
Contributors: Martikainen, Hanna
Source: Journal of Data Mining & Digital Humanities.
Publisher Information: Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe (CCSD), 2025.
Publication Year: 2025
Subject Terms: Human-machine interaction, Ergonomics of post-editing, Translator training, [SHS.LANGUE] Humanities and Social Sciences/Linguistics, Adaptive MT
Description: While the productivity gains brought about by machine translation (MT) can help translators meet ever-tighter deadlines and respond to pressing demands for publishing content simultaneously in different languages, these tools also impose a workflow that tends to reduce the human translator's role to simply correcting mistakes made by the machine in a one-way process with no real interaction. Thus, although more cost-effective, post-editing of MT output also appears a less creative and enjoyable a task than translation. Adaptive MT, on the other hand, has been advertised as a way to recenter the translation process on the human and foster more genuine interaction with the machine. Said to have been developed for professional translation workflows, the technology enables a dynamic work process that is supposedly very different from the repetitive task that post-editing static MT output can be. This paper presents an experiment with adaptive MT conducted during the 2020-2021 academic year. As part of a course on MT and post-editing, second-year master's students conducted group projects on the Lilt platform. In this paper, students' views on the MT engine are analyzed, with a focus on their interaction with the technology. While students recognize the potential of adaptive MT for empowering the human in the loop, MT quality and CAT ergonomics in general appear to have a greater influence on usability than interaction with the machine.
Document Type: Article
Conference object
File Description: application/pdf
Language: English
ISSN: 2416-5999
DOI: 10.46298/jdmdh.9108
Access URL: https://hal.science/hal-03758197v1
https://hal.science/hal-03548696v3/document
https://hal.science/hal-03548696v3
https://doi.org/10.46298/jdmdh.9108
Accession Number: edsair.doi.dedup.....0f70d0ac4908b3cc586c82729a188e62
Database: OpenAIRE
Description
Abstract:While the productivity gains brought about by machine translation (MT) can help translators meet ever-tighter deadlines and respond to pressing demands for publishing content simultaneously in different languages, these tools also impose a workflow that tends to reduce the human translator's role to simply correcting mistakes made by the machine in a one-way process with no real interaction. Thus, although more cost-effective, post-editing of MT output also appears a less creative and enjoyable a task than translation. Adaptive MT, on the other hand, has been advertised as a way to recenter the translation process on the human and foster more genuine interaction with the machine. Said to have been developed for professional translation workflows, the technology enables a dynamic work process that is supposedly very different from the repetitive task that post-editing static MT output can be. This paper presents an experiment with adaptive MT conducted during the 2020-2021 academic year. As part of a course on MT and post-editing, second-year master's students conducted group projects on the Lilt platform. In this paper, students' views on the MT engine are analyzed, with a focus on their interaction with the technology. While students recognize the potential of adaptive MT for empowering the human in the loop, MT quality and CAT ergonomics in general appear to have a greater influence on usability than interaction with the machine.
ISSN:24165999
DOI:10.46298/jdmdh.9108