Uses of AI Translation in UK Public Service Contexts: A Preliminary Report

This report presents preliminary results of a survey of machine translation use in health and social care, legal and emergency services, and the police. The focus of the survey is on uses of unedited machine translations. A sample of 2,520 UK professionals submitted valid responses to this survey. A total of 33% of them had used machine translation at work, most often in contexts involving direct communication with others in a shared physical space. The professionals were highly satisfied with the tools they used. They were also confident in their ability to use the tools successfully, even though it was uncommon for machine translation to be mentioned in workplace training. Google Translate was by far the tool used most often. The use of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT also ranked highly. The tools were often accessed on personal devices using an openly available browser interface, practices which pose significant risks to privacy and information security.