Human vs Machine: AI translation slam

Join us for an exciting event that pits the creative forces of human literary translation against AI translation tools! 

Witness three experienced translators, Rebecca DeWald, Vineet Lal and Annie Rutherford, compete with machine translation systems expertly operated by Daniela Ford. After each round of live translations, the audience gets to vote: Who translated it better – the humans or the machines?

Organised in partnership with the Institut français d'Écosse, the event will feature translations from German and French into English. Moderated by Christophe Fricker from the University of Bristol, it promises an exciting celebration of literary translation. The event will be held in English and can be attended without knowledge of German and French.

Join us to see if AI can match the creativity of human translators and enjoy a thrilling showdown!
Annie Rutherford makes things with words and champions poetry and translated literature in all its guises. A writer, translator and cultural project leader, her current work includes researching the possibility of setting up a Writers in Exile residency in Edinburgh. She has previously worked as programme manager for the Emerging Translator Mentorships at the National Centre for Writing, as head of library at the Goethe-Institut Glasgow, and as assistant director of StAnza, Scotland’s international poetry festival. Annie translates from German, French, Russian and Belarusian, and her published translations include full collections by poets Nora Gomringer and Volha Hapeyeva, as well as Isabel Bogdan’s novel The Peacock. She can spot a misplaced apostrophe at a distance of 50 meters. Rebecca DeWald is a bilingual translator with a PhD in Translation from the University of Glasgow, working with English, German, French and occasionally Spanish. She coordinates the Emerging Translator Mentorships Programme at the National Centre for Writing in Norwich, and -- when she is not on maternity leave, like she is right now -- runs the Translators' Stammtisch and Translation Theory Lab at the Goethe-Institut Glasgow. Rebecca also coordinates writing residencies at Kalewater Cottage Creative Retreat in the Scottish Borders. 
  Vineet Lal has degrees in French from the University of Edinburgh and Princeton University, and studied translation and conference interpreting at Heriot-Watt University. After a long career in tourism and destination marketing, he turned to literary translation, and he has now translated a number of French authors including Guillaume Musso, Michel Bussi and Grégoire Delacourt. His translation of The Red Notebook was shortlisted for the CWA Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger 2023, his translation of The Brothers Zzli won the Prix Albertine Jeunesse (6-8 years category) 2024 and his translation of Meet the Lithographer is currently shortlisted for the Prix Albertine Jeunesse (9-11 years category) 2025. He was co-chair of the Translators Association from 2022-24, and has been a Trustee of Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature since 2013. Daniela Ford has over 20 years' experience as a technical translator (French/English into German) and a localiser. She first encountered machine translation in 1992 during a university degree module on machine translation, and this ignited her life-long passion for learning about technology for translators. She is currently the MSc Translation & Technology Director at the Centre for Translation Studies at University College London where she teaches Translation Memory Tools and Machine Translation. 
  Christophe Fricker is an Associate Professor in German and Translation as well as Programme Director of the MA Translation at the University of Bristol. An award-winning poet and former founding partner of an international research and consultancy firm, his experience spans academia, creative practice and entrepreneurship. He is the German translator of a number of bestselling and highly acclaimed writers, including Nobel favourite Garielle Lutz, Jimmy Carter's inaugural poet James Dickey, Guardian columnist Owen Jones, Atlas of Prejudice internet sensation Yanko Tsvetkov and science writer Hugh Aldersey-Williams. He is also the English translator of German sociologist Hartmut Rosa and the poet Matthias Politycki.