Cover not available

Article published In: Literary Translation in the Era of Artificial Intelligence: Challenges and Its Future Prospects
Edited by Wang Ning and Wang Hongtao
[Babel 69:4] 2023
► pp. 529–545

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

Ethical issues for literary translation in the Era of artificial intelligence

 | Lingnan University
Published online: 24 July 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.00334.li
Abstract
Technological advancement has brought changes to many professions across the world. Furthermore, it has triggered a discussion about ethical issues. Machine Translation (MT) or Computer-Aided Translation (CAT) has vastly increased work efficiency and technology-related ethical issues are gaining academic attention these days. However, the discussion of ethical issues for literary translation against the backdrop of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is limited. After a quick review of the stages of MT, this paper will delve into literary translation’s emerging ethical issues, for example, the literary translator’s professional identity and copyright. Copyright ethics is an indispensable part of AI-enabled literary translation since training data and participatory NMT involve copyright issues. This study revealed that technological advancement will facilitate literary translation. However, no direct evidence exists that machine translation will replace human translators. Given the new working mode of “multi-players” or participatory translation, ethical issues arising from the human and machine interaction merit further academic inquiry.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Technological development and its impact on literary translation
  • 3.Human translators in AI-enabled literary translation
  • 4.Ethics of copyright in AI-enabled literary translation
    • 4.1Training data for NMT
    • 4.2NMT products
    • 4.3Copyright and retranslation
  • 5.Literary translator’s professional identity
  • 6.Ethical codes and education for literary translators in the AI era
  • 7.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (40)
References
Aranal, Lyshiel. 2021. “‘He Works, She Cooks’: Google Translate Results Reveal Gender Bias in Tech.” InqPOP!, 11 March 2021. Accessed 1 December 2021. [URL]
Baker, Mona, and Carol Maier. 2011. “Ethics in Interpreter and Translator Training.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 5 (1): 1–14. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bostrom, Nick, and Eliezer Yudkowsky. 2014. “The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence.” In The Cambridge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence, edited by Keith Frankish and William M. Ramsey, 316–334. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bowker, Lynn. 2021. “Translation Technologies and Ethics.” In The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Ethics, edited by Kaisa Koskinen and Nike K. Pokorn, 262–278. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Castilho, Sheila, and Natália Resende. 2022. “Post-editese in Literary Translations.” Information 13 (66):1–22. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chan, Sin-wai. 2018. The Human Factor in Machine Translation. London: Taylor and Francis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dignum, Virginia. 2018. “Ethics in Artificial Intelligence: Introduction to the Special Issue.” Ethics and Information Technology 20 (1): 1–3. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drugan, Joanna, and Chris Megone. 2011. “Bringing Ethics into Translator Training: An Integrated, Inter-disciplinary Approach.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 5 (1): 189–211. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drugan, Joanna. 2019. “Ethics.” In The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Philosophy, eds. by Piers Rawlingm and Philip Wilson, 243–255. Abingdon; New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Feng, Quangong 冯全功. 2012. “Cong shiti dao guanxi: fanyi yanjiu de jianxing tanxi” 从实体到关系——翻译研究的间性探析 [From entity to relation – Exploration of “interness” in translation studies]. Dangdai waiyu yanjiu 当代外语研究 [Contemporary foreign languages studies] 12 (1): 48–52.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Flynn, Sean, Christopher Geiger, Joao Quintais, Thomas Margoni, Mathew Sag, Lucie Guibault and Michael W. Carroll. 2020. “Implementing User Rights for Research in the Field of Artificial Intelligence: A Call for International Action.” European Intellectual Property Review 42 (7): 393–398. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garcia, Ignacio. 2011. “Translating by Post-editing: Is It the Way Forward?” Machine Translation 25 (3): 217–237. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gouadec, Daniel. 2007. Translation as a Profession. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Guerberof-Arenas, Ana, and Antonio Toral. 2020. The Impact of Post-Editing and Machine Translation on Creativity and Reading Experience. Translation Spaces. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kaisa Koskinen, and Nike K. Pokorn, eds. 2021. The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Ethics. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kenny, Dorothy, and Stephen Doherty. 2014. “Statistical Machine Translation in the Translation Curriculum: Overcoming Obstacles and Empowering Translators.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 8 (2): 276–294. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kenny, Dorothy. 2011. “The Ethics of Machine Translation.” In Proceedings of the XI NZSTI National Conference, edited by Sybille Ferner, 121–131. Auckland: NZSTI.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2019. “Machine Translation.” In The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Philosophy, edited by Piers Rawling and Philip Wilson, 428–445. Abingdon and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2020. “Technology and Translator Training.” In The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Technology, edited by Minako O’Hagan, 498–515. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lee, Hyang, and Yun Seong Woo. 2020. “How Can We Improve the Codes of Ethics for Translators?” Babel 66 (4–5): 706–718. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lee, Tong King. 2011. “The Death of the Translator in Machine Translation: A Bilingual Poetry Project.” Target: International Journal of Translation Studies 23 (1): 92–112. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2020. “Translation and Copyright: Towards a Distributed View of Originality and Authorship.” The Translator 26 (3): 241–256. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Loeb and Loeb LLP. 2018. “Naruto v. Slater.” Lexology, 23 April 2018. Accessed 1 December 2021. [URL]
Maouche, Seraya. 2019. “Google AI: Opportunities, Risks, and Ethical Challenges.” Contemporary French and Francophone Studies 23 (4): 447–455. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McDonough Dolmaya, Julie. 2011. “Moral Ambiguity: Some Shortcomings of Professional Codes of Ethics for Translators.” JosTrans: The Journal of Specialised Translation 151: 28–49.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moorkens, Joss, Antonio Toral, Sheila Castilho, and Andy Way. 2018. “Translators’ Perceptions of Literary Post-editing Using Statistical and Neural Machine Translation.” Translation Spaces 7(2): 240–262. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Poibeau, Thierry. 2017. Machine Translation. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ragni, Valentina, and Lucas Nunes Vieira. 2022. “What Has Changed with Neural Machine Translation? A Critical Review of Human Factors.” Perspectives 30 (1):137–158. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shoshan, Ofer. 2018. “Neural MT and Blockchain Are about to Radically Transform the Translation Market.” Slator, 21 May 2018, Accessed 16 January 2022. [URL]
Stupiello, Érika Nogueira de Andrade. 2008. “Ethical Implications of Translation Technologies.” Translation Journal 12 (1). Available at: [URL]
TAC (Translators Association of China). 2019. Code of Professional Ethics for Translators and Interpreters (ZYF 012–2019). Beijing: Standards Press of China.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Taivalkoski-Shilov, Kristiina. 2019. “Ethical Issues Regarding Machine (-assisted) Translation of Literary Texts.” Perspectives 27 (5): 689–703. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Toral, Antonio, and Andy Way. 2018. “What Level of Quality Can Neural Machine Translation Attain on Literary Text?” In Translation Quality Assessment: From Principles to Practice, edited by Joss Moorkens, Sheila Castilho, Federico Gaspari, and Stephen Doherty, 263–287. Switzerland: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Toral, Antonio, Sheila Castilho, Ke Hu, and Andy Way. 2018. “Attaining the Unattainable? Reassessing Claims of Human Parity in Neural Machine Translation.” In Proceedings of the Third Conference on Machine Translation: Research Papers, 113–123, Brussels, Belgium: Association for Computational Linguistics. [URL]
Yanisky-Ravid, Shlomit, and Xiaoqiong (Jackie) Liu. 2018. “When Artificial Intelligence Systems Produce Inventions: The 3A Era and an Alternative Model for Patent Law.” Cardozo Law Review 391: 2215–2262Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yanisky-Ravid, Shlomit, and Cynthia Martens. 2019. “From the Myth of Babel to Google Translate: Confronting Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence – Copyright and Algorithmic Biases in Online Translation Systems.” Seattle University Law Review 43 (1): 99–168. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yanisky-Ravid, Shlomit, and Sean K. Hallisey. 2019. “Equality and Privacy by Design: A New Model of Artificial Intelligence Data Transparency via Auditing, Certification, and Safe Harbor Regimes.” Fordham Urban Law Journal, 461:428–486.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zhang, Yongzhong 张永中. 2014. “Bianyi: zhuti jianxing de shiyu ronghe” 变译：主体间性的视域融合 [Translation variation: Horizon fusion of inter-subjectivity]. Waiyu xuekan 外语学刊 [Foreign language research] (1): 89–93.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zheng, Jianwei 郑剑委. 2018. “Zhongguo wangluo wenxue de haiwai jieshou yu wangluo fanyi moshi” 中国网络文学的海外接受与网络翻译模式 [A Study on the overseas reception and internet translation mode of Chinese internet literature]. Huawen wenxue 华文文学 [Literatures in Chinese] (5): 119–125.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (7)

Cited by seven other publications

Ed-Dali, Rachid
2025. Assessing DeepSeek R1 and ChatGPT 4.5 in Arabic-English literary translation: performance, challenges, and implications. Cogent Arts & Humanities 12:1 DOI logo
Fan, Rui & Yue Zhang
2025. Strengths and Limitations of Machine Translation and Human Translation. In Role of AI in Translation and Interpretation [Advances in Computational Intelligence and Robotics, ], ► pp. 95 ff. DOI logo
Topal, Mihriban Şevval & Nilgin Tanış Polat
2025. Yazın Çevirisinde Yapay Zekâ: Etik Değerlendirmeler ve Geleceğe Yönelik Çıkarımlar. Çeviribilim ve Uygulamaları Dergisi :38 ► pp. 108 ff. DOI logo
Wang, Yan
2025. Proceedings of the 2025 6th International Conference on Education, Knowledge and Information Management, ► pp. 501 ff. DOI logo
Змійова, Ірина, Інна Паненко & Дмитро Панченко
2025. ПРОФЕСІЙНА ОСВІТА ПЕРЕКЛАДАЧІВ У ЦИФРОВУ ДОБУ: ВИКЛИКИ МІЖДИСЦИПЛІНАРНОСТІ. NEW COLLEGIUM 119:3 ► pp. 31 ff. DOI logo
Zhang, Liyan & Hailong Zhao
2024. 2024 IEEE International Conference on Information Technology, Electronics and Intelligent Communication Systems (ICITEICS), ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Özmat, Demet & Buket Akkoyunlu
2024. Artificial Intelligence-Assisted Translation in Education: Academic Perspectives and Student Approaches. Participatory Educational Research 11:H. Ferhan Odabaşı Gift Issue ► pp. 151 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 2 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue