Title: Exploring the Value Spaces of Human Translation in the ChatGPT Era and the Transitions Needed for Translation Education

Abstract: So far, the outstanding translation performance exhibited by artificial general intelligence (AGI) like ChatGPT has been arousing a wide-ranging discussion in and out of the translation field, and it is not rare to feel an air of concern about the prospects of human translation as well as translation education. Against this backdrop, this article begins with an introduction to the AGI’s mechanism of contextualized generation, and then analyzes the limitations of ChatGPT-like automatic translation in realizing the ideational, interpersonal and textual meta-functions as required in translation as a meaning-making operation, followed by some reflections on the value spaces of human translation accordingly. It is therefore concluded that translation educators should make timely adjustments to ChatGPT-like AGI advancements, and prepare their students to become the kind of “whole-person” translators who can adapt to and even lead the new human-machine coupled translation ecology in the near future.

Keywords: ChatGPT, artificial general intelligence (AGI), value space, translation education, “whole-person” translator

Author: An Du, Lecturer, School of Foreign Studies, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.