Poll: In legal work, does AI translation increase the need for expert review rather than reduce it?
Лице кое објавува дискусија: ProZ.com Staff
ProZ.com Staff
ProZ.com Staff
ПЕРСОНАЛ НА СТРАНИЦАТА
Dec 8, 2025

This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "In legal work, does AI translation increase the need for expert review rather than reduce it?".

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Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida  Identity Verified
Португалија
Local time: 05:08
Член (2007)
англиски на португалски
+ ...
Fully agree... Dec 8, 2025

... and not only regarding legal work. AI hallucinations come in different forms and impact all sectors.

Iulia Parvu
Angie Garbarino
Claudio Machado Junior
Selen Bozkurt Demiray
Luis M. Sosa
Maria Laura Curzi
Zea_Mays
 
Ricardo Aries
Ricardo Aries  Identity Verified
Индонезија
Local time: 11:08
Член (2020)
англиски на индонезиски
+ ...
An Absolute Necessity Dec 8, 2025

In my opinion, translating legal documents with generative AI is very risky and necessitates thorough review by both linguists and legal professionals. This is because different legal systems, such as civil law and common law, have their own specific terminology. Additionally, some countries continue to use colonial-era legacy terms that may lack modern equivalents in the target language.

Iulia Parvu
Luis M. Sosa
Maria Laura Curzi
 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Холандија
Local time: 06:08
Член (2006)
англиски на африканс
+ ...
It does, because of hallucination Dec 8, 2025

Since with purer machine translation there is practically no hallucination, the translator can be more certain that the machine isn't trying to be clever. It's safer for translators of legal translation to use MT than AI. Both MT and AI makes the translator lazy and can lull them into a false sense of security, but AI does it in pernicious ways that are more difficult to spot. My concern is that new translators who have never translated without MT or AI will not be as critical of the translat... See more
Since with purer machine translation there is practically no hallucination, the translator can be more certain that the machine isn't trying to be clever. It's safer for translators of legal translation to use MT than AI. Both MT and AI makes the translator lazy and can lull them into a false sense of security, but AI does it in pernicious ways that are more difficult to spot. My concern is that new translators who have never translated without MT or AI will not be as critical of the translations that are dished up and will be more prone to making mistakes due to the fact that a proposed translation looks plausible.Collapse


Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
AllegroTrans (X)
Selen Bozkurt Demiray
Zea_Mays
Brigitte Schneider
Daryo
María Domínguez Camba
 
Nicholas Boline
Nicholas Boline  Identity Verified
Соединети Американски Држави
Local time: 23:08
Член (2023)
шпански на англиски
Same questions over and over Dec 8, 2025

Nearly every poll I've seen for the last year has been a repackaged version of the same pointless question about AI.

Why don't we try to bring some value to the website by asking questions that provide illuminating or interesting answers about our colleagues, our profession, and our field, or offer insight into relevant or interesting trends? Just phoning it in with low-effort polls about AI every single day is getting pretty old. Make the polls weekly or something if it's too much
... See more
Nearly every poll I've seen for the last year has been a repackaged version of the same pointless question about AI.

Why don't we try to bring some value to the website by asking questions that provide illuminating or interesting answers about our colleagues, our profession, and our field, or offer insight into relevant or interesting trends? Just phoning it in with low-effort polls about AI every single day is getting pretty old. Make the polls weekly or something if it's too much to do it every day.

If you can't think of any questions, I'm sure that Chat GPT will spit out a decent list of them... seriously.
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Maria Laura Curzi
AllegroTrans (X)
Sabrina Bruna
writeaway
Philip Lees
Oleksandr Kupriyanchuk
Beatriz Ramírez de Haro
 
Philip Lees
Philip Lees  Identity Verified
Грција
Local time: 07:08
грчки на англиски
Other: Triple yawn Dec 9, 2025

Yaaaaaawwwwwwnnnnn!

🥱🥱 💤 🥱🥱 💤 🥱🥱 💤


Oleksandr Kupriyanchuk
AllegroTrans (X)
Maria Laura Curzi
expressisverbis
 
Oleksandr Kupriyanchuk
Oleksandr Kupriyanchuk  Identity Verified
Соединети Американски Држави
руски на англиски
+ ...
"The Proz staff" increasingly relies on AI to run Proz, including its poll questions Dec 9, 2025

We have more and more signs of artificial intelligence at work here.

The ProZ staff increasingly relies on an AI (AStup.?) agent that believes AI is the only important topic in the world.

This question and its possible answers are incorrectly worded and, probably, formulated by AI yet again.
What are we being asked to agree/disagree with: with the question, the correctness/adequacy of the question, an implied answer to it, or the statement below?

Sh
... See more
We have more and more signs of artificial intelligence at work here.

The ProZ staff increasingly relies on an AI (AStup.?) agent that believes AI is the only important topic in the world.

This question and its possible answers are incorrectly worded and, probably, formulated by AI yet again.
What are we being asked to agree/disagree with: with the question, the correctness/adequacy of the question, an implied answer to it, or the statement below?

Should have been: “In legal work, AI translation increases, rather than reduces, the need for expert review. [Do you] agree/disagree/... with this?”


If the poll questions are mainly asked by a neural network, then let it answer them.


Dear AI agent acting on behalf of the Proz staff, this reply was written by a human without consulting AI.
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Maria Laura Curzi
Claudio Porcellana (X)
 
Daryo
Daryo
Local time: 05:08
српски на англиски
+ ...
What was that??? Dec 9, 2025

'AI translation'?

This linguistic sleight of hand is becoming tiresome.

As far as I can remember ANY translation starts by understanding the whole text - no two ways about it.

Would this question be implying that AI can understand the text that needs to be translated?

If that's the case, I'm surprised no AI peddlers has yet started bragging about it.

The most charitable label you could put on any MT/AI output is 'draft<
... See more
'AI translation'?

This linguistic sleight of hand is becoming tiresome.

As far as I can remember ANY translation starts by understanding the whole text - no two ways about it.

Would this question be implying that AI can understand the text that needs to be translated?

If that's the case, I'm surprised no AI peddlers has yet started bragging about it.

The most charitable label you could put on any MT/AI output is 'draft translation', although attempted would all too often be closer to the mark.

ONLY after a human knowledgeable enough to understand the ST has gone through the whole source text AND the whole of that MT/AI generated draft the result could warrant the label 'translation'.

As that takes far more time than a human simply translating from scratch, where is the gain of using MT/AI? None, unless you start cutting A LOT of corners ...

So I would rephrase this poll question as: 'Is the usual level of cutting corners with abondon OK for legal texts?'
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Maria Laura Curzi
Maria Laura Curzi  Identity Verified
Аргентина
Local time: 01:08
англиски на шпански
+ ...
ProZ AI Dec 9, 2025

Oleksandr Kupriyanchuk wrote:

We have more and more signs of artificial intelligence at work here.

The ProZ staff increasingly relies on an AI (AStup.?) agent that believes AI is the only important topic in the world.

This question and its possible answers are incorrectly worded and, probably, formulated by AI yet again.
What are we being asked to agree/disagree with: with the question, the correctness/adequacy of the question, an implied answer to it, or the statement below?

Should have been: “In legal work, AI translation increases, rather than reduces, the need for expert review. [Do you] agree/disagree/... with this?”


If the poll questions are mainly asked by a neural network, then let it answer them.


Dear AI agent acting on behalf of the Proz staff, this reply was written by a human without consulting AI.



It seems AI is in charge of the entire ProZ site, not just polls.
Because as we have witnessed during the last month, the job system has no vetting whatsoever and all sorts of legally dubious ads have been posted, including job ads looking for children. I guess ProZ AI isn't aware of child labor laws.

So it seems AI runs (ruins?) ProZ.


Angus Stewart
María Domínguez Camba
 
jyuan_us
jyuan_us
Соединети Американски Држави
Local time: 00:08
Член (2005)
англиски на кинески
+ ...
What does the question compare AI translation with? Dec 9, 2025

Does the question compare AI translation with human translations? Or, more specifically, does it compare a rough AI translation output with a well-polished translation that has been signed off by a professional legal translator? If so, I found such a comparison meaningless.

[Edited at 2025-12-09 21:50 GMT]


Daryo
María Domínguez Camba
 


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Poll: In legal work, does AI translation increase the need for expert review rather than reduce it?






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