The largest Dutch publisher, Veen Bosch & Keuning, recently announced a trial program to use artificial intelligence to translate a tiny portion of its list of commercial fiction titles into English. Simon & Schuster has acquired VBK in 2023, and the company wants to experiment with how AI can assist with the publishing process-more specifically, with translation for countries that have an English-speaking population.
While it is clear that AI is being fast-tracked into various corners of content creation, VBK’s experiment is singular: they focus only on commercial fiction, and have chosen to select fewer than ten titles in this trial of AI-assisted translation. The publisher underlines that this is an experimental move, and involves books that do not currently hold English rights and are unlikely to in the future.
Why Use AI for Book Translation?
A labour-intensive industry involved in complex processes, translation is an inevitable step for any international reach. A full, human-powered translation process is cost-and time-consuming and hard to justify over works with little potential for this reason alone. This is where AI can offer a cost-effective alternative for publishers to test the title’s appeal abroad.
Vanessa van Hofwegen, VBK commercial director, described this project in a very small scale: “There’s nothing literary in here.” All commercial fiction; it is the area which has a lesser chance for getting rights in English, and VBK expects to get some kind of advantage in terms of flexibility of AI.
AI’s Role and Human Oversight in Translation
It is worth mentioning here that VBK is not entirely replacing human translation but rather “supports” it by using AI. This is the critical difference; in one cycle, the text will be reviewed only by human translators or editors, so there will always be some kind of control exerted. In addition, the house has obtained rights from the authors to make these AI-assisted translations.
This indicates that AI does all the streamlining and speeding, but at the bottom line, human editors are there to put final touches as a quality control mechanism. Such an approach responds well to the broader motive of efficiency in publishing, though reactions from the community of literary translation have been mixed: scepticism and concern.
Industry Reactions: Translators’ Perspectives on AI in Publishing
The potential shift from traditional to AI-assisted translation has sparked a conversation among professional translators. Michele Hutchison, a Booker Prize-winning translator, raised a critical concern: commercial fiction, while often less complex than literary works, still requires nuance and creativity—qualities that AI often struggles to capture. AI translations, even after human post-editing, could lack depth or exhibit blandness, Hutchison suggests, thereby underserving both authors and readers.
Another esteemed translator, David McKay, also shared the same thought and commented that the approach of the trial was likely to make misleading or simply erroneous translations. McKay questions the decision to sideline human expertise and fears this trend could affect authors’ reputations, particularly if AI translations distort their intended message.
Ian Giles, co-chair of the Translators Association, called VBK’s AI trial “concerning.” His perspective reflects a broader anxiety within the translation community regarding job security and the quality of AI-generated content. A recent survey by the Translators Association reported that over a third of translators have lost work to AI, indicating that VBK’s pilot might be part of a broader trend. Giles emphasizes that if VBK finds it necessary to employ human editors for AI-translated texts, they implicitly recognize AI’s limitations.
Challenges in AI Translation: Nuance, Accuracy, and Quality
It is quite a complicated issue in the aspect that AI does not quite work well regarding creative translations. For one, machine learning models have seen tremendous advancement in the generation of readable text and grammatically correct text. However, simply being grammatically correct is much more than what literary and creative translations require. It requires keeping the voice, style, and cultural context of the creative work. Machine-generated translations often fail in this.
For example, phrases in Dutch that are idiomatic or on the subtler spectrum of emotional expression might not translate directly or idiomatically into English and may need a human mind to come out with the real meaning. Cultural subtleties, emotional undertones, or character-fused language may all be lost if a machine gets context wrong. Post-editing by human translators can partly rectify these problems, but, as Hutchison notes, even then, the end product may miss a certain richness about an utterance that is fully human-generated.
The AI-Human Partnership Model in Publishing
The VBK trial demonstrates that a balance between AI efficiency and human quality control may become an entirely new model in publishing. Obviously, with an AI system drafting the translation and making it possible to save on preliminary translation, speed up production, and save on intermediate stages of translation work, the peculiarity of final editing by human translators is indispensable to uphold the standards of quality.
This model facilitates easy testing of markets with no need to pay full translation costs upfront. If the result is good, it opens new markets for the authors, thereby expanding the reach of the publisher and perhaps even sending sales higher. Poor translations may still jeopardise the reputation of the authors if the AI content fails to represent their work properly.
Ethical and Economic Considerations
The AI translation test run by VBK underlines the very sharp ethical angle: does the literary creativity of authors get undermined with AI translation? How would this impact the translation professionals’ livelihood? Issues that strike familiar chords of wider ethical debates that are ongoing around generative AI in creative industries. As Ian Giles has mentioned, real-time effects of AI could be found in the translation business where companies try to automate parts of their work. VBK and similar publishing houses should assess how their work is affected with AI integration in their work as AI doesn’t allow professional translator groups, on whom the authenticity and richness of translated literature mainly depend, act as usual.
In addition to this, there is reader satisfaction. For the readers, poor translations or broad terminology merely take away from the interactive fiction experience that is supposed to induce an imaginative flood in them; therefore, it should be very necessary that the flavor of the author’s voice and style is preserved, which is only possible through human editors.
The Future of AI in Translation and Publishing
While this trial is limited in scope, it highlights a growing trend in the publishing industry to utilize AI for translation. Whether VBK’s experiment proves successful could shape how other publishers approach translation in the future. If a balanced AI-human model emerges, it might present a sustainable solution that respects both economic and creative interests.
AI technology has the potential to lower barriers for non-English authors aiming to reach English-speaking audiences. But as translators argue, language is more than a tool for communication—it is an art form that embodies cultural identity, emotion, and creativity. Therefore, the challenge for publishers like VBK is to harness AI’s efficiency while preserving these essential qualities.
In the end, VBK’s trial marks a fascinating development in the ongoing dialogue between technology and creativity in publishing. While there are valid concerns regarding quality and economic impact, the cautious, experimental nature of this initiative leaves room for further exploration. For now, the question remains: Can AI truly capture the soul of a story, or will it forever require a human hand to bring words to life?
Entry of the new world of AI-assisted translation by VBK heralds a new chapter in publishing, full of potential and limitations of how much technology can do in the creative space. Only time will tell whether it is a future where AI and human translators coexist in peace or one where technology simply cannot seem to produce a fraction of the complexity of expression in the human soul. Clearly, in any case, the world of books-and the profession of translators-looks like it’s going to be transformed utterly in the years ahead as AI continues its trajectory of redefining creativity.
