In response to your article (‘Being human helps’: despite rise of AI is there still hope for Europe’s translators?, 8 May), I work freelance for a company that produces memoirs for its customers. I used to interview, then write. Now, I interview, a large language model writes, and I am paid half of my previous fee to edit the result.
It takes as long to edit the AI-generated text as it used to take me to write the memoir. There are several reasons for this.
First, the AI content is tedious and homogeneous. I could ignore that problem, but I have a relationship with the often vulnerable people I interview. Second (and yes, I know that AI is constantly improving in this regard), it produces rubbish if an interviewee is less than coherent. Third, I am required by my employer to “check for accuracy”, which the company presents as a quick additional task, but which is in fact impossible without a full cross-reference of interviews against the draft.
It’s a cynical and nifty way to get work done at half the cost. The agency pretends that the AI is genius, and that my part in the writing process is cursory.
I wonder how many others in roles impacted by AI are still working, but earning half.
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