The Centre at JIAMCATT 2024: exploring AI’s place within the language professions | Iċ-Ċentru tat-Traduzzjoni Għall-Korpi tal-UE

This year’s International Annual Meeting on Computer-Assisted Translation and Terminology (JIAMCATT) was hosted in a hybrid form by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris, France, and took place from 6 to 8 March 2024. The overarching theme of this year’s session was '(R)evolution: AI’s place within the language professions'.

JIAMCATT, established as a task force under IAMLADP, serves as a platform for professionals to discuss computer-assisted terminology, translation, interpretation, and document retrieval. Its diverse membership includes international organisations, national institutions and academic bodies active in these fields. Through an annual plenary meeting and a dedicated website, participants exchange information and linguistic data. Interest groups focus on specific topics such as terminology, standards, and CAT tools, through online forums, email and surveys. Additionally, JIAMCATT organises local meetings to bring together participants from specific regions.

As we step into a future where technology continuously reshapes our lives, the integration and impact of AI within the language professions are undeniable. AI is not just transforming but revolutionising the way we approach languages, translation and communication. JIAMCATT 2024 aimed to explore this intersection, delving into the potential revolutions and evolutions AI brings to our field.

This year’s event brought together professionals, academics and technologists to engage in inspiring discussions about the future of language services in an AI-driven era, sharing advancements and concrete use cases of AI implementation.

Among the topics discussed, the experts addressed the question of converting AI research results into usable language features, creating text summaries from meeting videos end-to-end, automating the localisation of hyperlinks and using open-source workflows for subtitling.

While the future of language services is being redefined by AI, this technology has not fully aligned with the ambitious claim of achieving human parity. To continue advancing this field, responsible development and application of powerful language models are required.

The Centre attended this meeting to stay abreast of the latest advancements and applications of AI in translation, with insightful discussions, presentations and demos from EU and UN institutions, universities and other international organisations.