Does it still make sense to specialize in the age of AI?
Translators have been told for ages to specialize, specialize, specialize. Establishing your niche is supposed to be the ticket to irreplaceability, high rates, and professional fulfillment, with the legal and medical fields getting especially high attention.
I'm beginning to wonder, though, if that's changing with AI and machine translation. LLMs are especially good when dealing with similar texts within the same contextual framework, because they can build up a solid database of reference (or "training") material. Indeed, I'm seeing more and more people in specific niche fields (e.g., patent translation) talking about AI encroaching on their space. I feel like I'm just waiting for AI to come into my niche.
On the flip side, LLMs are less good when confronted with new, unfamiliar material. Humans might struggle with new materials too, but we can do research and figure things out without resorting to hallucinating.
So that leads me to wonder, is it now becoming more dangerous to take the conventional approach of specializing in a particular niche, and is it better to be a more flexible generalist who knows the source and target languages through and through and can figure out the specific material on the fly?