ABSTRACT
Relatively little has been written about ethics and translation technology to date, though this is starting to change. This chapter explores ethical questions related to both machine translation and computer-aided translation, taking stock of issues that have been discussed to date, while also looking to the future by considering some emerging questions. The chapter introduces the technologies themselves and considers how they fit within the wider spectrum of cultural, social, political, professional and ethical concerns. The chapter is subdivided into a number of sections, though in reality, many issues overlap or are intertwined, such that the same issue may be discussed from multiple perspectives. The issues covered in the chapter include the sharing and commoditization of translation resources; privacy and confidentiality of data; fidelity and collaboration; professional identity, autonomy and job satisfaction; lack of technology-related guidance in professional associations’ codes of ethics; productivity, time and money; cultural hegemony vs. linguistic diversity paradox; social responsibility; teaching ethics in translation technology courses; machine translation and literary translation; funding translation technology research; and computer-aided interpreting.
