Human translators could soon be joining the rising list of people who are losing their careers to AI, according to the CEO of start up Unbabel.

Vasco Pedro made the statement on Wednesday at Web Summit in Lisbon, and said that advancements in his company’s technology meant that previous iterations of the platform that required human interaction could be replaced entirely.

Pedro isn’t the first AI CEO to make the claim that AI is likely to replace jobs and entire industries, with some companies already committing to use AI in place of people.

Human Translators to be Replaced in Three Years

At Web Summit in Lisbon to discuss his company’s latest product, Unbabel CEO Vasco Pedro stated that Widn.AI, built on it’s proprietary Large Language Model (LLM) Tower, would exclude the need for human translators within the next three years.

Pedro stated “it’s hard for me to see right now how three years from now, you will need humans to be translating anything”. The companies previous platforms have all needed an editor at the final stage to check the end result, but now even that role could be shortly eliminated, according to the CEO.

A knock on effect of the lack of need for humans in the process is that the cost of translating will dip considerably, with the traditional salary considerations for translators no longer an issue. Pedro stated that while ‘per word’ revenue in the industry will “drastically reduce”, the volume of material being translated would increase, making the new model sustainable.

Unbabel isn’t the first translation company to lean into AI at the expense of humans. Duolingo announced in January this year that it would be offboarding 10% of its contractor workforce and replacing with AI translation solutions.

Is AI Really Coming for Your Job?

The announcement from Unbabel isn’t the first one that is likely to have workers rushing to polish up their resumes in fear of losing their livelihood. In fact it’s a message that many AI CEOs have relayed to us constantly over the past couple of years, during the current AI boom.

Perhaps one of the most vocal of these is Sam Altman, CEO of AI platform of the moment, OpenAI’s ChatGPT. So confident is he in his platform’s ability to usurp us, that Altman has regularly made statements that millions of people will lose their roles to AI. In 2023, in an interview with The Atlantic, Altman said that “Jobs are definitely going to go away, full stop.”

Don’t despair though, as Altman believes that when these jobs are naturally swallowed up by AI, we’ll all find “new and much better jobs”.

Companies that Have Replaced Workers with AI

For all the scaremongering and bluster around AI stealing jobs, we haven’t seen too much impact of it to date. In fact it seems that many companies are instead choosing to provide AI tools to help make employees’ lives easier, rather than replace them outright.

However, there are certainly some stand out cases where humans have been ditched in favor of AI. Here at Tech.co, we’ve been tracking these as they happen, with the likes of  IBM, MSN and Klarna all replacing human roles with AI.

In some instances, while AI has replaced roles, there have been no layoffs, as companies commit to upskill those affected workers and move them to different positions. This is the step that Ikea took when it introduced an AI bot named Billie to answer customer service queries. Call center workers have received training to become interior design advisors, instead.

Of course, replacing humans with AI can backfire. MSN’s AI platform has got its owners into hot water for posting inappropriate polls next to sensitive news stories and also described a recently deceased NBA basketball player Brandon Hunter as ‘useless at 42’. British delivery firm paused its AI customer bot after customers found it could easily be coaxed into swearing and criticizing the very company it worked for.

Chinese technology giant, Baidu, has announced its own pair of AI-integrated smart glasses, showing its hand to US competitor, Meta.

Announced at the company’s annual World Conference event in Shanghai, the glasses are expected to ship next year.

Meta has pushed its smart glasses offerings, putting them on display at the company’s physical store in Burlingame, California alongside its VR headsets; and further signalled its commitment to this technology through a team-up with Ray-Ban.

China…Then the World

Baidu, though, is very much targeting the Chinese market initially with launch – a country where the Meta Ray-Ban glasses were not sold.

The Financial Times reports that the Baidu glasses are run on the company’s LLM, Ernie. The company has already used this to build a “virtual dashboard for families to help monitor elderly relatives, who can talk to AI doctors and receive reminders to take medication through a device,” says the newspaper.

Li Ying, head of Baidu’s hardware brand Xiaodu, told crowds at the conference that the glasses would “become a private assistant,” providing wearers with information like their calorie consumption, play music for them and also be able to shoot videos.

A Competitor to Meta’s AI Glasses?

While the Baidu launch is focused upon China, this is an exciting development as it sees another technology company with global ambitions coming into this space.

The news comes swiftly after the unveiling of Meta’s Orion AR glasses – claimed by the company to be “the most advanced pair of AR glasses ever made.”

Meta says that their draw is that they look and feel like glasses – and not some hefty glasses-headset hybrid. “Orion is a feat of miniaturization – the components are packed down to a fraction of a millimeter. Dozens of innovations were required to get the design down to a contemporary form that you’d be comfortable wearing every day,” says Meta.

It adds that they have “the largest field of view in the smallest AR glasses form to date” to allow the real and digital worlds to merge seamlessly.

Meta’s Actual Product Won’t Arrive for a While

While this sounds very exciting, it is only Meta staff who will be getting their hands on Orion initially.

Orion won’t “make its way into the hands of consumers” as it is a “polished prototype,” shares meta, so we may be waiting a while to buy. Meta says, vaguely, “in the next few years, you can expect to see new devices from us that build on our R&D efforts.”

By then, Baidu may already have several iterations on the shelves in China; and could be eyeing the markets beyond.

Love it or loathe it, AI is here and it isn’t going anywhere. With its market size projected to reach a scarcely believable $1,339 billion by 2030, it’s time to start honing your skills – or you might risk getting left behind.

Fortunately, this needn’t be cause for alarm. In fact, there are dozens of AI courses out there that can help you embrace the immense opportunity that the frighteningly useful technology poses, and luckily, a lot of the material provided can often be accessed free of charge.

Whether you want to brush up on responsible usage, prompt engineering, or large language model (LLM) learning, enrolling in one of the courses that we’ve outlined below is a good place to start. So, read on to find out more.

Free AI Training Courses You Can Start in November

Although there are vastly more paid AI courses out there than free ones, you don’t necessarily have to break the bank to learn more about AI – in fact, there are several organizations offering free training courses this November. We’ve outlined some of our favorites below.

Intel

Computing giant Intel is on a mission to help 30 million people gain AI skills by 2030. To help with this initiative, they’ve got several free online courses and tutorials that you can get access to. Topics range from machine learning to anomaly detection, and can take anywhere from four to 12 weeks to complete. Here are some other examples:

• Natural Language Processing (12 weeks) 
• Time Series Analysis (eight weeks)
• Deep Learning Inference With FPGAs (five weeks)

If you’re keen to dip your toes in the AI water, it’s the perfect place to start. Find out more on Intel’s course portal.

Amazon Web Services

Enroll in “Generative AI – The Art of the Possible” for a light introduction to Gen AI, including what it can do for your business, and pros and cons. At just one hour, this is a real beginner’s course. You can find out more about it and apply here.

If you want something a little more hands-on from Amazon’s AI learning hub, simply try Amazon’s PartyRock interactive tool, which will help you learn about prompt engineering through trial and error and how you can build apps without code.

There’s also a 3D racing simulator game from more advanced machine learning whizzes – and although you’ll have to pay eventually, you can get up to 10 hours of usage time completely free.

365 DataScience

For the next 13 days, all content and certificates are completely free to access on 365 DataScience for up to three weeks. Do not adjust your television set; that’s 85+ courses, achievement certificates, real-world data projects, and hours and hours of tuition –  all for free.

There’s quite a wide range to choose from regardless of your technical level. For instance, you can start with introductory sessions that give you a broad overview of different AI topics, or head straight to the more advanced level SQL and visualization courses. Head over to the 365 DataScience website to take advantage of this fantastic offer before it expires.

DeepLearning.AI

Courtesy of DeepLearning.AI, you could take seven video lessons on “Improving Accuracy of LLM Applications,” comprising just 100 minutes.

Over this duration, you’ll learn steps to improve your model’s reliability and accuracy, how memory tuning can boost performance, and build an LLM application with the Llama 3-8b model. Check out the website for more information.

Physiopedia International

For the next eight days, you can access the “AI Masterclass for Healthcare Professionals Program” for free. Over 6-7 hours, you’ll gain deeper insight into the use of AI in clinical practice, education, and research.

As a self-paced course, you can take the classes at any time and at any location. What’s more, it’s accredited, so you’ll get a certificate at the end – and that’s not always a given with free AI courses! If you’re a healthcare professional and you’d like to sign up, visit the website today.

Paid AI Training Courses You Can Start This November

As you may have guessed if you’ve spent any time on the internet recently looking for free AI courses, they can’t always be found in abundance. With this in mind, we’ve put together some of the most exciting and interesting paid AI courses

Purdue University: Applied Generative AI Specialization

• Start date: November 20, 2024 (admission closes on November 13)
• Program duration: 16 weeks, 50+ hours

Purdue University offers a comprehensive 16-week course focused on “learn[ing] to develop and deploy Gen AI applications.” As a part of this, successful applicants will study LLMs, attention mechanisms, LLM application development, and more. Offered in partnership with Microsoft Azure, the course takes place online, with several accolades on offer.

These include a program certificate from Purdue University Online and Simplilearn, Purdue Alumni Association membership eligibility, a course completion certificate hosted on the Microsoft Learn portal, and the chance to build Gen-AI-enabled apps over seven projects.

What’s more, candidates will gain familiarity with several cutting-edge tools throughout the syllabus, with examples including Python, ChatGPT, Hugging Face, LangChain, and more. Naturally, exposure to these advanced programs will give your employability chances a healthy shot in the arm, with a future career as a Gen AI developer, data scientist, or architect, one step closer.

If you’re eager to explore your options, Purdue offers a few other AI-related courses that are worth looking into. These include Gen AI for Business, Gen AI for Practitioners, and No Code AI and ML. Head over to the website for more information and to apply online.

University of California, Berkeley: Artificial Intelligence: Business Strategies and Applications

• Start date: Unknown (admission closes on November 14)
• Program duration: 2 months, 4-6 hours per week

Another institution right at the forefront of AI and education is the University of California, Berkeley. The university offers several courses to take your knowledge to the next level. Our pick of the bunch – Business Strategies and Applications – unfolds online over two months. Students will get to grips with the current AI landscape and its future, learn how to use AI tools and simulations to hone predictions, organize and manage successful AI-related projects, and much more.

In addition to hours of online learning, you’ll also get access to four live sessions, each led by a specialist faculty. These are titled “The Business of AI Today,” “Generative AI Models and Simulation for Prediction,” “AI and Organizations – Building Your Team,” and “The Future of AI in Business.”

If that sounds like a lot, that’s because it is – comprising eight modules, this course is not for the faint-hearted. But if you complete it, you’ll be awarded a verified digital certificate from UC Berkeley Executive Education, while the course also counts towards a Certificate of Business Excellence.

IDEO U: AI x Design Thinking Workshop Series

• Start date: November 20 or January 29
• Program duration: 3 hours

Keen to know more about AI but can’t commit to hours and hours of learning? IDEO U’s three-part workshop series might just be for you. Throughout three live sessions, you’ll learn how to use AI to boost your idea generation, research synthesis, and prototyping.

You’ll find out how AI tools work and how you can use them to add an invaluable skill to your design thinking toolkit. At just 60 minutes per session, it’s perfect for beginners, and at $250 for the three sessions, it’s priced as such.

Check out the website to find out more and apply.

Stanford University: Artificial Intelligence Professional Program

• Start date: November 11 (admission deadline unknown)
• Program duration: 10 weeks per course, 10-15 hours per week

One of the most esteemed institutions in the US, Stanford also offers a wide-ranging online program for prospective AI enthusiasts. Totaling eight courses, the program is made up of online lectures, coding and written assignments, group calls, and one-on-one tuition. The courses in question are “Reinforcement Learning,” “Deep Generative Models,” “Deep Multi-Task and Meta-learning,” “Artificial Intelligence: Principles and Techniques,” “Natural Language Processing with Deep Learning,” “Natural Language Understanding,” “Machine Learning with Graphs,” and “Machine Learning.”

This breadth of content and tuition is designed to equip students with the skills to build their own AI models and algorithms, debug code, accurately evaluate AI model results, implement generative language models, and more. In short, it’s an incredibly rigorous course, and if you’re not proficient in Python, calculus, linear algebra, and probability theory, it’s probably not for you.

But if you tick those boxes and you want to learn more, head to the Stanford Online website.

Northwestern University: AI Applications for Growth

• Start date: November 21 (admission deadline unknown)
• Program duration: 2 months, 4-6 hours per week

Last up on our list is Northwestern University, which offers a course specifically geared toward solving business problems through AI. In eight modules, participants will explore the potential of AI in business through practical examples, evaluate Gen AI as a tool of business, and navigate ethical concerns in order to drive responsible and effective initiatives.

Fair warning: This course isn’t for beginners. Ideal candidates will be experienced executives, managers, and consultants, alongside investors who want to gain a deeper understanding of this burgeoning technology. But if you’re accepted, expect live sessions, dedicated program support teams, peer learning and feedback, grading, and more.

For more information and to apply online, head to the website.

The robots are coming! At least, that’s what Nvidia is hoping for, with the technology company revealing a new AI system that can improve the functionality of humanoid robots.

At this point, what can’t AI do, right? The technology is being used to generate content, produce images, and even create podcasts out of thin air, with more and more use cases being announced every day.

Now, human robots are on the menu for AI advocates, and it could help usher in a new era of robotics, albeit an unsettling one for iRobot fans.

Nvidia Going Big on Robots

At the Conference for Robot Learning (CoRL) in Munich this week, Nvidia announced a wide range of AI and humanoid robot related initiatives that would see the company heavily invested in their development.

As for what these initiatives will aim to accomplish, the Nvidia blog post announcing the technology did a great job of laying it out for us:

“The lineup includes the general availability of the Nvidia Isaac Lab robot learning framework; six new humanoid robot learning workflows for Project GR00T, an initiative to accelerate humanoid robot development; and new world-model development tools for video data curation and processing, including the Nvidia Cosmos tokenizer and Nvidia NeMo Curator for video processing.”

Are Humanoid Robots Really Going to Be a Thing?

While humanoid robots may sound like a far-fetched idea to some, the reality is that AI and other evolving technologies are making weird science fiction stuff very much possible.

Nvidia is, of course, not the only company that is working on this kind of technology with Tesla announcing a range of humanoid robots alongside its self-driving cars that can perform a variety of tasks, like “babysitting your kid or walking your dog,” according to CEO Elon Musk.

Suffice to say, humanoid robots may very well be on the way in the coming years, particularly if the richest man in the world and one of the biggest AI companies in the world are on board.

Nvidia Is on a Roll

To be fair, Nvidia jumping on board the humanoid robot train in such a big way is a good indicator that this kind of technology is right around the corner, if only because the tech company has been on such a roll lately.

With more than its fair share of competitors in the space, Nvidia has become the unofficial poster child for AI development, riding the generative AI wave to become the third most valuable company in the world thanks to its impressive chip production.

Simply put, you could soon be ditching your smartphone for a humanoid robot that will do everything for you, especially with Nvidia on the job.