This week California’s Judicial Council cancelled a statewide plan for AI translation at court counters after legal-aid groups gathered pilot transcripts in which translators found errors. In the same days Google Meet began rolling out Gemini speech translation in 63 languages, and Abu Dhabi unveiled an Arabic model built to follow dialects and code-switching. Tools advance fast; courts, where one wrong word has consequences, ask for proof.
The profession is pulled in two directions. The 2026 European Master’s in Translation framework redefines translator competence around AI, yet a translator in Prague says her faculty celebrates her prize while a reorganisation could close its translation institute, and UK modern-language degrees keep closing. Meanwhile communities write their own answers: Gabon works towards one alphabet for 53 local varieties, and a Leiden linguist reminds us that language loss takes knowledge with it.
Bridges still need builders. For Metaglossia, interculturation means that communities and professionals decide what “good enough” means.