METM25 keynote

Dancing with the devil? On the use of AI in literary translation and beyond

Dorothy Kenny, Dublin, Ireland

In 2011, I spoke at METM11 about the human element in machine translation. At the time, statistical machine translation was at its zenith, and translators were still learning what it would mean to interact with machine translation systems and how the post-editing of machine translation would affect their work and skill development.

In 2025, the landscape looks very different for translators as well as researchers. The rise of large language models trading under the banner of generative AI and being indiscriminately promoted within myriad sectors has affected not just translation, but related fields like editing, journalism and creative writing. Researchers continue to track, among other things, how translators interact – willingly or unwillingly – with translation systems and how the sustainability of their work shifts as a result.

Against this backdrop, I will share my research on the use of genAI in literary translation, a sector that once seemed impervious to automation but is now increasingly seen by researchers as a “frontier” zone in the expansion of automatic translation, with technology providers offering platforms designed for this purpose and commercial publishers trialling the automatic translation of selected literary genres. Translators’ organizations have been vocal in condemning nefarious practices in the area, but they are also leading educational and legal initiatives that seek to give their members the knowledge and skills they will need to face ongoing challenges.

I will take the lessons from my study of literary translation and return to a broader view of translation to look at what remains constant and what has changed or needs to change in translator education and training responses to the ongoing tech turmoil. After surveying the scene, I will finally probe into what kind of research is now needed to help promote a sustainable future for translation and translators in the literary world and beyond.
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About Dorothy

Dorothy Kenny is full professor of translation studies at Dublin City University, Ireland. She holds a BA in French and German from Dublin City University, and an MSc in machine translation and a PhD in language engineering from the University of Manchester. Her current research interests include corpus-based analyses of translation and translator style, the relationship between artificial intelligence and literary translation, and approaches to the teaching of translation technology. Her most recent book is the open-access edited volume Machine translation for everyone: Empowering users in the age of artificial intelligence (2022). She is co-editor of the journal Translation Spaces and an Honorary Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Linguists.
Photo credit: Graham Webb