Machine translation is treated as a nemesis by a majority of professional translation service providers. But is it really so? I think most translators dismiss machine translation because of two reasons, one is of course valid, machine translation can be awkward to read and more critically, it can contain mild to severe errors. The second reason for many professional translators’ aversion to machine translation is the niggling, maybe unconscious thought that it can hurt their job prospects. This is where I beg to differ.
I strongly believe that artificial intelligence can never replicate the capability of human intelligence. When it comes to machine translations, I believe that translation buyers would always need the services of professional human translators especially when they require important documents to be translated.
Anyway let’s look at the bright side of machine translation, in my experience I have got a number of new clients who have been disappointed with machine translation and have approached me with a reinforced respect for my translation skills. 
And then there are times when a client is not willing to pay my standard rates on a translation job, since the document itself is not very important. I readily refer them to a free online translation service or software which I believe can do the job well. This makes my client happy and I don’t have to say no a job because it is not paying well enough.
