Human versus Machine 2025: Beyond the Binary

AI Translation Slam (French and German)

Join us for our AI Translation Slam 2025, which pitches the creative forces of literary translation by humans against AI translation tools.

This year, our focus will be on the translation of gender sensitive language. What can we learn about the strength and limitations of human translators and AI translation tools when considering issues such as:

• the gender identity of authors, narrators and protagonists;
• transgender and non-binary thematic concerns;
• gender bias and stereotypes;
• the differences between German and French when it comes to gender identity linguistic characteristics?

You will witness two experienced literary translators, Rebecca DeWald and Jo Heinrich, compete with machine translation systems like ChatGPT, expertly operated by digital transformation expert Jason Sprague. After each round of texts, the audience gets to contribute their comments and questions on who translated it better – the humans or the machines?

The event will be moderated by Christophe Fricker and is a collaboration between Goethe-Institut London and the Institut français du Royame-Uni.

It is supported by the Franco-German Culture Fund.