Strength of current models on the capabilities this job's tasks require.
Task automation potential76/100
Task-level exposure, weighted by task importance. A component of the headline, not the headline itself.
Observed AI adoption0/100
Evidence that AI is actually being used for this work.
Labour-market signal62/100
Observed changes in postings, employment or earnings.
Evidence strength49/100
Quantity and source quality of the evidence behind the score.
2 evidence item(s) contribute. Calculated 19 hours ago. 3 Oct 2026 UTC.
Overview
Interpret oral or sign language, or translate written text from one language into another.
Employment
≈70,000
approx. BLS OES
Median wage
≈$58,000
approx. BLS OES
Tasks tracked
17
linked to this occupation
Employment and wage values are approximate reference figures from the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics programme, stored with an approximation flag. Verify against the O*NET record and BLS before quoting them.
Core tasks only. Exposure describes how much of the task output current AI can produce or substantially assist - not whether the task disappears. Secondary shared-baseline edges are hidden until per-occupation curation is complete.
2 attributed item(s). Confidence reflects study design: randomised and production deployments score higher than platform observations, which score higher than projections.
model releaseincreasesconfidence 94/100 · magnitude 886 Nov 2023
Whisper large-v3 provides open-weight multilingual speech recognition, allowing transcription to be run at scale for the cost of compute alone.
The clearest direct capability match in this index: manual transcription and captioning are technically substitutable today. Adoption is therefore the binding constraint, not capability.
labor marketincreasesconfidence 74/100 · magnitude 627 Mar 2024
Using platform data from a large online labour market, the authors find that after ChatGPT's release, jobs more exposed to AI automation experienced a relative decline in the number of projects and in freelancer earnings compared with less-exposed jobs.
One of the few *observational labour-market outcome* studies. It is platform-specific, covers remote freelance work only, and cannot separate AI substitution from other demand shifts. Treated here as a genuine labour-market signal with medium confidence.
Backcast series: recomputed at quarterly checkpoints using only the models and evidence published by each date.
Score · 23 points · 2021-01-01 to 2026-07-01
Reconstruction, not measurement. 5 observed daily snapshot(s) exist for this occupation; the earlier part of the curve is derived by applying the current methodology to the model releases and published evidence available at each past date.
Recent events
Signals affecting this occupation
Research published
▲ IMPACT 40
Improving OCR Faithfulness via Gated and Attenuated On-Policy Distillation
arXiv:2609.38282v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Vision-language models may rewrite anomalous text in images into linguistically plausible expressions, compromising OCR transcription faithfulness. Sequence-level task rewards and local teacher guidance are complementary, but guidance from the same teacher may not remain equally effective as the student improves. Offline analysis shows that supervision from a fixed teacher becomes progressively less favorable as the student improves, both across training checkpoints and across response groups with different task rewards. Motivated by this observa
Labor research/Confidence:74 · moderate/Verified by AIKillsWhat
Research published
▲ IMPACT 40
When Scientific Contradictions Are Lost in Translation
arXiv:2609.38621v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Two scientific findings can disagree without contradicting each other. Determining whether they conflict requires knowing whether they describe comparable measurements. We study how language models behave at this decision point. In a controlled task, we generate an unsatisfiable XOR constraint system and translate its constraints into scientific reports from different laboratories. One assignment satisfies more constraints, while another satisfies fewer but better matches expected biology. This creates a simple dilemma: does the model choose the
Labor research/Confidence:74 · moderate/Verified by AIKillsWhat
Labour market update
▲ IMPACT 62
Automation-prone freelance work saw fewer projects and lower earnings after ChatGPT
Using platform data from a large online labour market, the authors find that after ChatGPT's release, jobs more exposed to AI automation experienced a relative decline in the number of projects and in freelancer earnings compared with less-exposed jobs.
Workforce data/Confidence:74 · moderate/Verified by AIKillsWhat
New model
▲ IMPACT 88
Whisper large-v3 made accurate transcription freely self-hostable
Whisper large-v3 provides open-weight multilingual speech recognition, allowing transcription to be run at scale for the cost of compute alone.
Frontier release/Confidence:94 · high/Verified by AIKillsWhat
Common questions regarding Interpreters and Translators and AI exposure.
Will AI replace Interpreters and Translators?
Current AI models show an exposure score of 59/100 for Interpreters and Translators. This measures technical capability to assist or automate specific tasks rather than predicted immediate job loss. Moderate exposure reflects assistance in routine information-handling while core responsibilities require human judgment.
Which tasks in Interpreters and Translators have the highest AI exposure?
The most exposed tasks for Interpreters and Translators include "Compile terminology and information to be used in translations, including technical terms such as those for legal or me…" (85% exposure) and "Refer to reference materials, such as dictionaries, lexicons, encyclopedias, and computerized terminology banks, as nee…" (85% exposure).
What aspects of Interpreters and Translators can AI not do yet?
Tasks with the lowest AI exposure for Interpreters and Translators include "Follow ethical codes that protect the confidentiality of information." (15% exposure) and "Translate messages simultaneously or consecutively into specified languages, orally or by using hand signs, maintaining…" (25% exposure). These responsibilities typically require physical dexterity, licensed human accountability, or complex interpersonal navigation.
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Notice: All ratings shown are AI-estimated technical exposure scores measuring technical capabilities across O*NET task statements, not predicted job loss. Contains information from O*NET 31.0 by the U.S. Department of Labor, ETA, used under CC BY 4.0.