AI translation handles trillions of words monthly but faces high-stakes accuracy challenges

Google Translate alone translates one trillion words externally each month, with direct sales of machine translation estimated at $1.4bn last year. While AI translation quality has improved significantly, experts like François Yvon note challenges with idioms, and translators like Ariella Baltié report major errors in high-stakes contexts, such as translating 'Le demandeur' (the plaintiff) as 'the requester' in legal documents. Jonathan Zimmerman of OKA states AI drafts are often good enough that skipping human review is a temptation, but translators argue human input remains necessary for critical accuracy.