When asked recently about Spain’s request to make Catalan, Basque and Galician official languages of the European Union, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz offered a confident answer: “I believe that even in the medium term there is a very good solution: one day, thanks to artificial intelligence, we will no longer need interpreters. We will be able to hear, understand, and speak every language in the world within the EU.“
It sounded like a joke — but it wasn’t. The EU’s multilingualism comes with a heavy price tag. Translation and interpretation cost hundreds of millions of euros each year1. In a political climate dominated by budget restraint, the appeal of artificial intelligence is obvious: less bureaucracy, more efficiency, lower costs. Perhaps even lower taxes for its citizens.
That logic is powerful. And in many ways, AI translation and interpretation is indeed a success story. Machine systems now deliver fluid, accurate translation across dozens of languages. Performances are improving at a staggering pace also for voice translation, both for offline and real-time scenarios. For daily life — reading news, joining meetings, watching videos — this is an extraordinary leap forward. It brings accessibility to millions who were once excluded by language barriers, it increases market opportunities (think of content creators having their videos in multiple languages on YouTube), it offers a cheap and viable solution where translation and interpretation was not an option in the past.
AI translation as a low-risk technology
In ordinary use, AI translation is a low-risk technology. It is instrumental for professional translators and interpreters to be more competitive. And it is ultimately useful for end users — to read a document in a foreign language, to participate in an international meeting where the working language is English, or to watch their favorite podcast in the language of their choice. When it fails badly, people notice and stop using it. When it fails slightly, it might cause a misunderstanding — something humans are already very good at creating, but also at navigating, without help from AI. Misunderstandings may be awkward or frustrating, but they rarely end in tragedy. Our life is scattered with smaller and bigger misunderstandings. And we live happily with them.
AI legislation, which will increasingly shape our daily interactions with AI tools and services, also seems to classify AI translation and interpreting in this way. That is why most people — and rightly so — welcome these systems. They make life easier, connections faster, and communication fairer. Enthusiasm for what only a few years ago seemed like science fiction is now palpable. The promise of reducing costs for companies, public institutions, and private citizens is already becoming a reality — and it will only grow stronger in the years to come.
But not every conversation is safe
There are situations, however, where words carry weight. And this weight might be very heavy. When a patient describes symptoms, or a doctor explains treatment. When a witness testifies in court. When a diplomat negotiates under pressure.
In such moments, even minor misinterpretations can have serious consequences. Human translators and interpreters are not infallible — they, too, make mistakes and occasionally cause misunderstandings. But when the stakes are truly high, the best option we have now is to turn to highly qualified professionals to minimize those risks (this is not something unique to translation). They bring long preparation, experience, and accountability — qualities that algorithms cannot emulate. A machine’s errors, by contrast, remain silent until the damage is done. This is why legislators emphasize that it is the use of a technology — not the technology itself — that must be treated as high-risk. When it affects an individual’s well-being or fundamental rights, it becomes high-risk. When it has the potential to influence policies or decisions impacting millions of people, it should likewise be considered high-risk. This is precisely the case, if not in all, then in at least many diplomatic meetings at the EU level that were the object of Merz’s suggestion.
High-Quality Interpreting is coming. But this is not a good reason to use it in every context
I assume that AI interpreting might reach “human parity” by 2030, as described in more details in this article, and I would even go as far as to suggest that it will, in some respects, achieve superhuman performance. As someone deeply involved in developing systems to augment professional interpreters and to automate interpreting altogether, I often stress that the ability to replicate professional performance at an exceptionally high level does not mean we should seek to replace professionals in every context or at any cost. In my upcoming paper “Interpreting without Intelligence,” I explore this double-edged point: even if machines can one day match human interpreters in output, there will remain compelling reasons to continue relying on human professionals. Topics such as trust and accountability are non negotiable.
And here lies the danger. Because translation and interpreting is often seen as an instrumental device, rather than an act of trust and accountability, its automation is seen as a way to save money, for example in public institutions. Chancellor Merz’s spontaneous optimism is a warning. It reflects how easily we can fall into the trap of using AI for everything — even in domains where a single misunderstood sentence can affect justice, health, or diplomacy.
Efficiency must be tight with clear conditions
Yes, AI can help Europe’s institutions save money. Yes, it can make communication more inclusive. But efficiency and inclusion should never be unconditional. There are conversations — the ones that decide lives, rights, or policies — where human trust and responsibility must remain part of the entire process. We will need not only to create AI solutions that are at least as secure as humans, but also to be able to trust them. Chancellor Merz wisely ended his remark with a conditional point: “But that will take some time“. I very much agree on this.
- The overall cost for delivering translation and interpreting services in the EU institutions is around €1 billion per year, which represents less than 1 % of the EU budget, according to a source of the European Parliament (https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document/EPRS_BRI(2019)642207). ↩︎