In June 2016, the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of Slovenia and the Anna Lindh Foundation organised the conference ‘Translation for Dialogue’, the first of its kind in the Euro-Med region. This event brought together translation experts and cultural stakeholders to advocate for translation as a central hub for intercultural dialogue, pledging to foster cultural diversity and promote shared values.
Since then, translation has played a crucial role in promoting intercultural dialogue and strengthening a shared identity based on cultural diversity in the Euro-Med region. Now, AI has entered the scene, transforming this landscape by enhancing translation quality through advanced computational capabilities, better data and sophisticated software. To address the current situation, the Anna Lindh Foundation, in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of Slovenia, organised the international conference ‘Building Bridges Across Languages: Human-Centred AI for the Euro-Med’ on 6 and 7 June 2024.
Focusing on a human-centred perspective of AI’s role in translation, the conference aimed to put at the forefront of the translation industry an approach that aims to increase diversity, equity and inclusion in AI access and usage, seeking to influence translation policy and practice by sharing knowledge and developing strategies to integrate human and AI efforts.
Upon the invitation of Boštjan Zupančič, Slovenia’s representative on the Translation Centre’s Management Board, Ildikó Horváth had the honour of delivering the keynote speech, illustrating the Translation Centre’s hybrid approach that harmoniously integrates cutting-edge technologies with essential refined and unbiased human expertise, brought in by a variety of professional profiles, such as editors, language technicians and engineers, subject-matter experts and professional linguists. The Centre has developed streamlined workflows to harness the advantages that machine translation offers, thus expanding the ways in which organisations can leverage multilingualism and reach much larger audiences than before.
Furthermore, Dr Horváth stressed that despite the remarkable technological advancements, translation quality cannot rely on technological logic and automated processes alone. The Centre acknowledges the potential of AI‑driven technology to enhance multilingualism, but strongly believes that accuracy, clarity and professionalism in specialist communications can only be achieved with expert human intervention. That is why it is the Centre’s mission to advise against the unsupervised use of AI tools in generating translated texts, and to raise awareness of its risks, such as the dissemination of false information, the lack of clarity and ambiguity, and the subsequent impact on reputation and credibility.
The Centre is proud to be a reference point in the field of human expertise powered by AI, and is committed to continuing its efforts in further developments to guarantee responsible AI usage and practices in translation.
The event successfully fostered collaboration among experts and cultural figures to showcase, debate and advocate for translation as a central tool for intercultural dialogue.