Many translators fear and lament what will be lost as their work gets automated. Many were never in it for the money, but for love of the work—of translating games, prose and art. They worry AI-generated output stands to flatten and collapse culture itself, our very ability to understand each other.

Unlike as in the first installment in AI Killed My Job, which looked at tech workers, some of these stories are truly harrowing. Workers in their 40s, 50s, even 60s, who now have to think about how they're going to survive, while their peers are retiring. Some are despairing.

Some translators I spoke to said their freelance work is down 90%. Others said it's dried up completely. Others say it's only a matter of time, and are looking into new careers. One games company that had translators on staff said they could stay—if they took a 50% pay cut.

Many translators paint a picture of how, despite there being no revolutionary advance in automating translation, the floor began to fall out from the industry around 2023. OpenAI, it seemed, made 'good enough' translations acceptable, and demand for quality work evaporated.

More precisely, this is how corporate clients, managers, and executives who've been sold on the power of AI by Silicon Valley, have used AI as a way to drive down wages, demand higher volume, and deskill work.

I spoke to dozens of translators who've been impacted, and many tell similar stories.

It seriously irks me that she just laughed at us when my wife and I talked about wanting a day away from the baby for ourselves, and said that's not happening for another 18 years.

Does every parent deal with this, or is it just an issue for me because of ADD?

But the fact that the nap could be anywhere from 30 mins to 2 hours makes it impossible to plan for any kind of lengthy task requiring extended focus.

So that only leaves his actual sleep time for work, and I’m supposed to somehow get my own sleep then as well?

When my baby boy is awake he can barely go five minutes without attention and interaction before he cries.

And this is supposed to last another year?

It makes any kind of concentration or focus impossible while he’s awake, and he only naps 2 hours at best, twice a day at most.