AI Is Here. What Will It Mean for Interpreting? Call for Proposals: think! Interpreting at GALA 2019

After a busy summer away from our platform, we return to kick off a busy fall, winter and spring.

GALA 2019 may not be until next March, but the call for proposals is out now and we invite you to consider putting in a presentation that highlights the interpreting side of the language services industry.

The Globalization and Localization Association's Annual Language of Business conferences bring together translation, interpreting and localization industry leaders to learn, exchange ideas, and gain new perspectives.

For the past five years, InterpretAmerica has collaborated with GALA on think! Interpreting, a content track aimed specifically at highlighting the most important trends and events shaping interpreting.

This year's theme for GALA 2019, The Changing Role of the Human Being in an AI-driven Language Service Industry, reflects the continued hyper-rate of change our profession is grappling with.

Just as we are beginning to see how new mobile technologies are affecting multilingual communications, we now must understand the possibilities and limitations of artificial intelligence (AI) to facilitate spoken communication.

Clearly, we are on the cusp of a revolution. What should stakeholders in the language industry do to prepare themselves?

The call for proposals frames the topic in this way:

"AI and Machine Learning are affecting the language sector, leading to new efficiencies in operations, faster delivery of services, changing business models, and the availability of new language technologies. AI-based technologies like virtual agents, speech recognition, predictive analytics, and smart resourcing change how humans interact with machines and result in new expectations for language services and new concerns around privacy and security. While technical opportunities abound, there is ambivalence about their effects in the short and long term.

Clearly, we are on the cusp of a revolution. What should stakeholders in the language industry do to prepare themselves? What are the challenges and how do we mitigate them? What are the gains and how do we embrace and maximize them? And finally, what is the role of the human in all of this? GALA 2019 will be centered on the human being and its changing role in an AI-driven language service industry. To this end we invite papers that take a critical look at the current work environment and lay out what new competencies are needed and how they can be acquired and honed."

Whether we like it or not, we are in for another roller coaster ride of change and disruption as AI rapidly inserts itself into the fundamental purpose of interpreting: communication.

think! Interpreting 6 will again provide a unique forum where key players gather to get a big picture of the interpreting market as well as to foster business and networking opportunities with key language enterprise stakeholders from around the world.

InterpretAmerica continues its partnership with GALA to further integrate this thriving segment with the rest of the language enterprise. think! Interpreting is the place where the business of interpreting meets and we are delighted to invite you to our growing community.

We need your perspective, your experiences and your insight. Submit a proposal for GALA 2019. We'll see you in Munich in 2019!