The largest publisher in the Netherlands, Veen Bosch & Keuning (VBK) is set to trial using artificial intelligence when translating books into English. 

Major publisher in the Netherlands using AI for book translations

With its headquarters in Utrecht, VBK - the largest Dutch publishing company, recently acquired by Simon & Schuster - will start translating books with the use of AI. “We are working on a limited experiment with some Dutch authors, for their books to be translated into English language using AI,” a VBK spokesperson told The Bookseller. “There will be one editing phase, and authors have been asked to give permission for this.”

According to the commercial director at VBK, Vanessa van Hofwegen, only a limited number of books will be translated with AI as part of the trial. “This project contains less than 10 titles – all commercial fiction. No literary titles will nor shall be used,” Van Hofwegen told The Guardian. “This is on an experimental basis, and we’re only including books where English rights have not been sold, and we don’t foresee the opportunity to sell English rights of these books in the future.”  

Concerns about using AI in publishing

While the VBK spokesperson emphasised that AI is not being used to create books and that “it all starts and ends with human action”, there are concerns about the use of AI in publishing. “Taking the translator out of the loop opens the door to incorrect or misleading translations that will serve readers poorly,” David McKay, a Dutch-to-English literary translator, told The Guardian. 

Michele Hutchison, a Dutch language translator, believes finer nuances could also be lost in AI translation - as anyone who is learning Dutch can tell you, some things cannot be directly translated. Even if a person edits the piece translated by AI, “there’s only so far you can get. The text might be superficially smooth but it is also likely to be very bland.” 

Not only could the technology affect the quality of the writing, but there are also concerns among human translators about the future of their jobs. According to the Translators Association at the Society of Authors (SoA), a third of literary translators have already seen a decline in work because of AI. 

Thumb image credit: Henk Vrieselaar / Shutterstock.com