The Risks of Free Artificial Intelligence Interpreters in High-Stakes Environments
All across the world, people are using free artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT and Google Translate to perform the role of an interpreter, allowing them to communicate seamlessly with people who don’t speak their primary language. For low-risk contexts—like a tourist trying to ask a shop clerk how much their souvenir costs, for example—these tools can be quite valuable.
But in high-stakes environments like hospitals and courts, free artificial intelligence interpreters are simply not enough. Large language models and machine translation tools may be capable of interpreting simple, straightforward conversations, but they’re far from error-free: They struggle with nuanced or ambiguous language and lack the cultural knowledge and emotional complexity that human interpreters bring to the job.
While Google Translate might be good enough to help you ask a passerby for directions to the nearest train station, it’s absolutely not good enough for a nurse trying to help a patient understand their discharge instructions.
In this blog post, we’ll go over the different ways in which artificial intelligence interpreters are being used today, and why human interpreters are still an absolute must-have in high-stakes environments like legal proceedings, the healthcare system, and emergency services. We’ll explain some of the key limitations of artificial intelligence interpreters and the importance of intervention by human professionals in the interpretation process.
Table of Contents
What Are Free Artificial Intelligence Interpreters?
High-Stakes Environments Where AI Interpreters Are Used
Risks of Relying Solely on Free AI Interpreters in High-Stakes Environments
Why Human Oversight is Essential
Best Practices for Using AI Interpreters in Critical Environments
What Are Free Artificial Intelligence Interpreters?
Artificial intelligence interpreters combine speech-to-text and machine translation technologies to provide real-time language assistance, much like a human interpreter would.
The process works quite similarly to consecutive interpreting: One person speaks in their preferred language, while the artificial intelligence interpreter transcribes what they’re saying and then translates that into the other person’s preferred language. The translation can then be read aloud using text-to-speech technology, or the person can simply read a written translation of what the other person said. Here are a few examples of artificial intelligence interpreters that are available for free:
- Google Translate
- ChatGPT
- Microsoft Translator
- DeepL
Like a human interpreter, these platforms allow for fairly seamless conversation between two individuals. For low-risk settings—especially settings where you wouldn’t normally have an interpreter with you, like tourism or casual conversation—these can be very helpful tools. But they are also prone to errors that a human interpreter typically wouldn’t make.
For example, if there’s an error in transcribing the speaker’s speech, the translation could be completely wrong. Additionally, machine translation tools are notoriously bad at translating language that is ambiguous, nuanced, or slang-heavy. In fact, recent research shows that medical translations done by ChatGPT and Google Translate yielded errors in spelling, grammar, and readability that caused significant misunderstandings. This means a human interpreter is still necessary when it comes to high-stakes environments where a person’s life could depend on the quality of the interpretation.
High-Stakes Environments Where AI Interpreters Are Used
In general, artificial intelligence interpreters are not being used for high-stakes interpretation—at least not on their own. There are some organizations testing out artificial intelligence tools to bridge language gaps in high-stakes settings like hospitals and legal proceedings, but it’s important to note that these organizations are also taking into account several ethical considerations as well, to ensure that they’re using the tools responsibly.
Take the Seattle Children’s Hospital, for instance: They’re testing out artificial intelligence tools to help provide patients and their families with discharge instructions in their preferred language before they leave the hospital (a written translation is also mailed to families after the patient has left the hospital). However, they’re using an internally developed tool to keep patient information private and have created an AI ethics board to oversee the implementation of the technology. And perhaps most importantly, human translators will still be double-checking the translations to ensure that the information is translated appropriately.
Artificial intelligence interpreters and translators can present all sorts of risks when such measures aren’t taken. Below, we’ll look at a few of the issues that can arise when you rely on free AI tools alone in high-stakes settings:
Risks of Relying Solely on Free AI Interpreters in High-Stakes Environments
1. Accuracy Concerns: All kinds of inaccuracies can come up when using AI interpreters. If the speaker’s speech is mistranscribed, the machine translation will not be an accurate representation of what they meant to say (for example, the word “femur” might be mistranscribed as “lemur,” potentially leading to serious complications). Beyond mistranscription, machine translation tools struggle with accuracy, especially for languages for which less training data is available.
2. Regulatory and Compliance Risks: Using free artificial intelligence tools also raises concerns about potential violations of industry regulations, such as HIPAA in healthcare or legal misinterpretations in court. Take, for instance, the Utah lawyer who was sanctioned for using ChatGPT to help write a brief that cited hallucinated citations (i.e., citations that the model made up).
3. Lack of Contextual Understanding: AI’s inability to fully grasp cultural, emotional, or situational nuances that human interpreters would understand. Human interpreters can take cultural and emotional cues and other factors into context, a skill that sets them apart from machine translation and AI. This allows them to better parse out ambiguous or unclear language, leading to more accurate communication between both parties.
Why Human Oversight is Essential
Using artificial intelligence interpreters without any human oversight can certainly speed things up—but it also lowers the overall quality. Instead of implementing artificial intelligence on its own, it’s important to have a human in the loop—humans can help vet translations and make sure that the final product is a high-quality translation. A hybrid approach—in which artificial intelligence is used as a tool for interpretation, rather than as an interpreter itself—maximizes efficiency and minimizes the risks we’ve outlined above.
When it comes to high-stakes settings like emergency room visits or court proceedings, it’s important to have a human interpreter on hand—this is the best way to ensure high-quality language assistance for individuals with limited English proficiency. In these settings, inaccuracies caused by poor contextual understanding or grammatical errors can have grave consequences—a human must oversee these processes. By working with a trusted language service provider to contract interpreters, you can be sure that a human interpreter will always be available when you need one, whether by phone or video call.
For low-risk contexts, like simple administrative tasks, AI interpreters can be a useful tool to boost efficiency, but it’s still a good idea to have a human reviewing the final product to make sure that everything is accurate and editing things accordingly.
Best Practices for Using AI Interpreters in Critical Environments
- Hybrid Approach: Utilize both AI and human interpreters in tandem with one another; humans can handle the higher-risk contexts, while AI can be employed in less serious situations. Humans should still review any AI interpretations to make sure they are appropriate.
- Choosing Reliable Tools: Free tools like ChatGPT or Google Translate may be useful for more general needs, but they’re not enough for the specific needs of hospitals, law firms, etc.—look for AI tools that are specialized for your industry, even if they come at a cost.
- Compliance Measures: When selecting an AI tool, make sure that it meets industry standards for safety and privacy, such as HIPAA for healthcare or ethical guidelines in legal contexts.
- Training AI Models: Consider training your AI model with domain-specific data to improve AI interpreter accuracy.
Frequently Asked Questions About Free AI Interpreters
Should critical care industries avoid AI entirely?
Not necessarily—artificial intelligence can be a powerful tool to boost efficiency. That said, AI output needs to be thoroughly reviewed by a human to ensure its accuracy.
How accurate are free AI interpreters in critical situations?
Free AI interpreters are typically not specialized to the unique needs of those working in high-stakes environments, like hospitals, law firms, and emergency response teams. Individuals working in these industries should look for AI tools that are trained on domain-specific data that reflects their specific needs.
Are free AI interpreters compliant with healthcare/legal regulations?
In general, no. In healthcare, sharing patient data with a third-party typically violates HIPAA, meaning that tools like ChatGPT and Google Translate are typically not compliant—AI interpreting tools need to store all patient data internally. In the legal field, it varies depending on how and what the tools are being used for. Attorneys, paralegals, and others working in the legal field should also review local regulations and confirm that their use of certain AI interpreters does not violate ethical guidelines.
Can free AI interpreters replace human interpreters in high-stakes environments?
No. Human interpreters are especially important when it comes to high-stakes environments, as AI tools tend to make mistakes that humans wouldn’t. In settings where miscommunication can have a serious impact on an individual’s life, it’s absolutely critical to have a human interpreter.
What are some reliable alternatives to free AI interpreters?
It may not always be possible to get a human interpreter on-site, especially in emergency settings. But language service providers like Avantpage offer on-demand virtual, remote, and over-the-phone interpreting services, which connect you with a qualified interpreter in mere seconds. Consult with a trusted language service provider to identify reliable alternatives to artificial intelligence interpreters.
Conclusion
It may be tempting to use a free artificial intelligence interpreter when you don’t have a human interpreter available. But understand that this is a risky gambit. At best, it can lead to an awkward encounter; at worst, a patient could lose their life due to a simple miscommunication that a professional interpreter could have resolved.
At Avantpage, we work with a team of professional, human interpreters to provide language assistance in high-stakes settings like emergency healthcare and legal proceedings. Through our in-house platform interpreting program, we can connect clients to human interpreters remotely in a matter of seconds. If you’re looking for human interpreters to enhance your language access measures, don’t hesitate to contact us today at (530) 750-2040 or [email protected].
