The world is beginning to embrace AI (artificial intelligence) more and more. AI can enable businesses to localize marketing content for international audiences; however, it is not a practical choice for translating legal documents, such as documents for immigration.
At CA Translation Services, we understand that academic, legal, and immigration documents require a precise and contextual understanding of languages. This understanding must encompass both the original document’s language and the target language; therefore, AI isn’t the best option for this type of perception.
Why AI Does Not Meet the Required Translation Standards
High-stakes tasks like the translation of academic or immigration documents in the United States require a high degree of precision. Translations done by AI shouldn’t be trusted for this since AI can’t interpret nuance or the intent behind text.
Other areas in which AI can’t replace a certified human translator:
- Quality
- A professional translation service, such as CA Translation Services, provides superior quality. Translators adapt their style to specific brands and target an intended audience. CA Translation Services professionals can adapt content from one language and culture to another while preserving the original intent, style, emotional impact, and tone. Unlike AI, they do more than interpret literal words.
- Nuance & Accuracy
- CA Translation Services provides culturally accurate translation in all documents. These certified human translators understand deeper meanings, emotional tones, and idioms. That insight results in natural, precise cultural accuracy translation of all documents.
- Expertise
- Certified human translators rely on their linguistic skills, critical thinking skills, and cultural knowledge to make informed judgments in their translations.
Human Translation vs AI
AI has been known to introduce inaccurate meanings, culturally insensitive content, and inappropriate tone into translated documents. Certified human translators understand these concerns as well as:
- Wordplay
- Humor
- Words that have multiple meanings
- Evolving languages
- Jargon or slang
- Complex sentences
- Ambiguous words
- Metaphors
- Idioms
- The proper use of nouns and low-resource languages
AI can also make mistakes in grammar, semantics, and style due to its lack of cultural understanding. CA Translation Services uses no AI translation. All work is completed by translators with a bachelor’s or graduate degree in language and teaching. You will receive a final translated document that has been reviewed and edited by experienced human translators.
Machine Translation Does Not Meet Standards For Immigration, Academic, Or Legal Documents
The USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) handles immigration applications. This agency requires:
- Every foreign-language document be submitted along with a complete English translation
- All translations must be certified by a professional translator who can guarantee their accuracy and completeness
- Translations must be accompanied by a translator’s certification, including:
- Translator’s name, address, date of certification, and signature
- A statement that the translator is competent in both English and the original foreign language of the documents
- A declaration from the translator that the documents are accurate and true to the best of the translator’s ability
While MT (machine translation) can translate large volumes of text quickly to save time and resources, it does not have the ability to understand the cultural context required to meet USCIS standards. It also cannot provide a translator’s signature or statement of completeness as required by the USCIS.
MT, just like AI, may be able to provide acceptable translations for straightforward content, but it fails with specialized material, such as academic, legal, or immigration documents. These types of translations also cannot guarantee the high accuracy or linguistic appropriateness needed by the USCIS.
How AI Has Failed With Immigration Translations
AI has limited tools when it comes to grasping cultural content in translating immigration documents. These are some examples of how AI and MT translations have led to misunderstanding and errors:
- Asylum applications have been rejected when the AI interpreted an “I” as “we,” making it sound as though the application was for more than one person.
- A woman had been trying to seek asylum because of domestic abuse, listed her abuser as “Mi jefe,” meaning “father”; however, AI translated it into “her boss,” and the application was denied.
Problems with AI translation tools occur from the asylum process through to the immigration courts. These errors and failures are a systemic problem, as AI is dependent on data fed into it. The quality of the data is determined by both comprehensiveness and accuracy. Ariel Koren, Founder of Respond Crisis Translation, a network of 2,500 urgent interpreters, said, “AI translation tools should never be used in a way that is unsupervised. They should never be used to replace translators and interpreters, and they should not be used in high-stakes situations.” Because language is more than a series of meanings and words, that data has to make sense in context to a broad audience.
Where To Find Professional Quality Translations
CA Translation Services provides a wide range of translation services worldwide to translate documents into American English. Our certified translations are accepted by universities, DMV, and USCIS, along with other agencies.
All CA Translation Services are performed by human translators with no AI. Final versions are edited, reviewed, and guaranteed to be accurate. Certifications and accreditation of our staff include ISO17100 and ISO 9001 Certifications, Global Translators Institute Certification, CIOL Certification, and ATA (American Translators Association) membership. All translators have either a bachelor’s or a graduate degree in language, translation and teaching.
If you are looking for translation of a diploma, court letter, lease, printed or promotional material, academic document, or any legal document, you need to contact CA Translation Services.