Transcription
I have a degree from Cambridge University. I am a chartered translator with over 15 years of experience and AI took my job. AI took my livelihood. I find myself starting over at age 39. How did I get here?
I've been working as a translator for 15 years and as a freelance translator for just over 10 years now. I was made redundant from my last job in 2015. That was a turning point in my life. It gave me the push I needed to pursue freelancing. Over the years, I got qualified. I studied hard for various professional exams and I thought I've made it. I had a cozy career working from home, freelancing, working for myself with various translation agencies. It allowed me to prioritize my family, bring up two children while making an income from home. And I'll always be grateful for that to be there for my children when they were young and needed me most. To be there when they started walking, you know, all those milestones.
But things have been deteriorating for a while in terms of work. Slowly over the past 12 to 18 months thanks to AI. At first, it was slow, gradual. Some clients I worked with started sending me less work and then no work. One of them at least told me that they were experimenting with AI and machine translation before they stopped sending me work altogether. Last year on my main channel, I actually made a video about that a major client uh stopped sending me work because of AI and this time it was very explicit. The agency told me that the end client decided to use automated AI translation instead. That was maybe 30% of my income. So that that was tough.
But last week it all happened overnight. Um so mid January, I mean February, I lost my number one source of income. That translation agency accounted for maybe 80% of my income and overnight, I mean really overnight, I stopped getting work. At first I thought it was maybe a blip. I emailed the agency after a few days of not getting any work asking what's going on. They told me they were automating using AI. They were automating the job allocation process and for whatever reason I stopped getting work. The algorithm didn't like me. I lowered my rates on the system as per their advice. Still no work. So overnight my income has dropped to almost zero.
I've been working on my main YouTube channel for a few years. It's still not monetized and it's so hard. I've grown to 1,700 subscribers, but I'm still a long way from hitting the 4,000 watch hours criteria. Well, so I started that channel for two reasons. to support my book which I self-published in 2021 which is all about helping parents raise multilingual children because I struggly be struggling I personally struggled with that and found a way forward with my husband and I wanted to pass on that advice and I started the channel to share that advice directly with the world whether or not people wanted to buy my book and books actually because I later created more books with my sister and then it turned into a real passion making YouTube videos and now I'm turning 40 this year. I'm starting over.
So, it really is a bit of an existential crisis for me, a time of reckoning. I worked so hard to get into a top university. I got a good job after that. I worked at Christies, a really prestigious auction house. After that, I worked for a prestigious luxury fashion company as an in-house translator. And now I find myself where I am. no income, no career. I have a really prestigious degree that I worked hard for. I have tons of qualifications to my name, but I have to start over. And that's the thing. I can't really blame AI because as frustrated as I feel, I I think AI can do my job better in many ways than I can. Or maybe not necessarily better, but certainly a lot faster and way cheaper. From a business perspective, if you could automate your translation and maybe sacrifice like I don't know 10% of quality. So your quality goes from I don't know like 10 out of 10 to nine or eight out of 10 but you cut your budget by 80 90%. I know what I would do as a business. It makes business sense to use AI instead, doesn't it?
And I've always believed the world does not owe me a living. That's my Chinese upbringing. I suppose it is my responsibility to provide for my family and I just have to accept that I've been through hard times before. The redundancy back then was really brutal. But I got through it and came out stronger. So I'm hoping that in 10 years time I'll look back on this period 2026 as another pivotal moment, an opportunity to maybe transform my life, to start over, maybe do something better or at least something new. Because what's the alternative, right? I guess the alternative for me would be despair and nihilism. And that's not really an option for me because I have two young children. What am I teaching them if I just fall into despair and treat myself as a victim of circumstances? I can't afford to do that. I have to show my children how to rise up to challenges in life. I mean, it really sucks. I'm not going to sugarcoat that. It effing sucks.
At the same time, I have so much to be grateful for. I have two beautiful children, a really supportive husband. We've been through tough times, but you know, when things are tough, when you're going through challenges, that's when you realize how important the foundation is, that marriage and what it can do for you, providing that stability in your life. We have a roof over our heads. We even have a garden like this. It's so beautiful. We can afford our groceries. We can meet our essential needs. and we're surviving and I just need to find alternative sources of income. It does mean cutting back on things, things like travel, eating out, that kind of thing. Not that we travel or eat out that much, but there are still luxuries that if necessary can be, I guess, removed from our lives. Hopefully not permanently, just until I get back on my feet. But this is the world we live in. And you know what? I I I refuse to just c up and die. That's not even an option. I refuse to be a victim. I have to believe that I can find a way forward. Not saying it's going to be easy, but there is no alternative.
And as a society, we have to brace ourselves for what's coming. Translation is obviously one of the first jobs to go. I mean, everyone saw it coming. The writing was on the wall. Even a few years ago, people were saying like, "Oh, Google Translate can translate everything." And now it's just, you know, accelerated. But ultimately AI is coming for everything, isn't it? Even blue collar jobs we think are irreplaceable now like dog walking, pet sitting, that kind of thing, eventually maybe robots can do those jobs or maybe if AI decimates people's incomes to such an extent, people won't be able to afford those luxuries anyway. And that's coming as well. Maybe I don't know. So, every one of us needs to face this reality and figure out a way to survive, not even thrive. Maybe that's too lofty a goal right now. But to just survive in this new world.
So, for me, what does that mean? I mean, I can try to get a job. I've actually applied for a few jobs. It's not easy, though. There are so many people looking for jobs at the moment, and the UK economy isn't doing that great. Having been a freelancer for many years, my CV may not be the perfect match for a lot of roles, I'm not really cut out for the corporate life. I could try to get more freelance translation work, but in reality, I do think translation is a bit of a dead end. So, I'm not really counting on that. So, yeah, I don't have the answers. I really don't. I don't think anyone does. If you do, please tell me. Share in the comments below. Has AI affected you? Let me know.
Another thing is that I'll have to double down on content creation because I have a voice. We all do. I have a personality. We all do. These things can't be replicated by AI. I hope so. My channel, my main channel is all about helping parents raise multilingual children. I share my personal experience, my real life tips and advice. And on this channel, I hope to share my journey in advocating all these changes in my life and in this world. I hope that by delivering value, the money will come one day. Maybe I just have to believe that. I have to trust that it's not completely hopeless. So yeah, no answers, but I'll figure things out. I'll try. I'm in a much better position than a lot of people and I'm so grateful for that.
And to young people or anyone struggling right now, I want you to know that you're not alone. You're far from alone. If you want to subscribe to this channel um and follow my journey and we can cheer each other on, let's do that. If you're a parent watching this, I think we need to reconsider what we tell our children. You know that old narrative, get good grades, get a good degree, get a good job, stability, all that Is that still viable? Is that still a bulletproof life path? I don't think so. By the time my children who are seven and nine enter the workforce, I can't even fathom what work will look like, you know, by then in 10, 15 years time. So maybe we should teach resilience. I don't know, mental resilience, adaptability. That feels like the number one quality we need right now because things are just changing at such a crazy pace. And how do we cultivate these qualities in our kids? That's the real challenge. The school system needs to change. Society needs to change. I mean, our complete value systems, the society needs an overhaul.
And in the meantime, I'm really glad I discovered mindfulness and Buddhism a while ago. I talk about those things on my substack. Feel free to check it out. It's free. I'm not selling anything. Anyone can check them out, read them. Mindfulness, meditation, Buddhist concepts like impermanence. They've helped me tremendously in dealing with this uncertain world and these rapid changes in my life, in our world, the world we live in. So yeah, these are my thoughts. I don't have the answers, but I'll keep going. Cheers, guys. Bye.