Hype, hope, and the legion in the middle
- Gabriel Karandyšovský
- May 21
- 5 min read
My reality is different from yours. Your reality is different from your mother’s. You get it. There is a multiplicity of mutually non-exclusive realities.
Most of the time, they coexist, although certainly not always, and not always peacefully. They tend to collide and may have an outsized influence on each other (think parent-child relations, where parents shape their children's world). Sometimes these collisions are life-altering, fueling fears and anxieties, especially when someone else’s reality is forced onto you.
This is a piece about AI hype (it still exists), hope (it never goes away), and the legion of humans in the middle who need knowledge and the right kind of prompt to get unstuck and choose a path to follow.
Yet an essential feature of these realities is that they remain malleable. We are influenceable. We can shift opinions — those of us who are on the open-minded scale of things anyway. But really, no one is immune to change, so we have that going for us, too.
A couple of months ago, when delivering a workshop for translation Master's students at the University of Lille on the present and future of the language services industry, I was reminded of reality's malleability. And thank goodness we can change opinions.
This is a piece about AI hype (it still exists), hope (it never goes away), and the legion of humans in the middle who need knowledge and the right kind of prompt to get unstuck and choose a path to follow.
On AI hype, the unwelcome guest that just doesn’t seem to get the hint
Over the past almost three years, GenAI has become a fixture in mainstream translation and localization discussions (yes, it’s been that long with GenAI already!). It’s now part of the fabric of the industry and our professional lives.
If this were one big, continuous party we’ve been having, AI is the rich, young, naive party crasher who wants to show he belongs. When he shows up, we suspend our conversation and give each other meaningful (exasperated) looks. He’s not getting the hint, though — his parents told him there’s money to be made and that he must mingle. So we accept that he’s part of the clique now, although we privately badmouth him and try to distance ourselves from him.
Irrespective of their relationship with AI, well-educated, seasoned professionals who quietly chip away at their careers may think they’ve heard it all, and can thus tune out the AI buzz. They may have concluded that, of course, we are collectively well past the hype phase. It is not so.
When preparing for the workshop with the students, I sprinkled a few quiz questions throughout my presentation. One of the early ones was: “Do you think we have passed the GenAI hype?” I gave the students time to respond, and Zoom processed the results. There were approximately 100 students in the session, which provided a decent sample size.
92% of students believe we are still in the hype phase.
This stands to reason. Translation students are bombarded with AI, and it’s easy to imagine their reality being heavily influenced by this constant stream of information. While unsurprising, the students' responses proved to be a helpful reality check for me:
I realized my reality is different from theirs and that, sure enough, multiple realities are coexisting. You see, I’m one of those who have been (mostly) able to harness the AI hype. Occasionally, I make it work for me. But where I thought we were well past the hype, and most everyone in this industry has moved on, the answer is no. Many future professionals still don’t see the wood for the trees.
And to them, the hype is not getting any less anxiety-inducing.
On hope, and the little you need to nourish it
The primary data point that prompted me to write this piece altogether comes from a question I asked the students at the beginning and end of my presentation, effectively bookending it: “How do you feel about the future?”
There is still room for that thing we humans are so attached to and will never relinquish — hope.
I asked the question at the beginning of my talk and then again at its end. See for yourself what the results were:
Now, besides these results reassuring me that this random guy they’ve never met and had to listen to for an hour and a half is doing a decent job of giving a positive spin on the state of the industry, there are a few takeaways here:
We do this subconsciously, but we constantly evaluate the information we receive, and our perception of reality is in a state of constant flux.
We humans are indeed influenceable, for better or worse. It all depends on who we talk to or listen to, and how compelling a case that person makes (I used a lot of data from various sources in my presentation).
On that note, what you say and how you say it matter massively. I’ve done my share of public speaking in various formats. Heck, I’m a writer, so the importance of words is not lost on me. On this occasion, the data shows that it indeed did make a difference.
It may be challenging to change the mind of someone deeply pessimistic. It’s to those on the fence where our attention and support can make the biggest difference (but it does so for everyone, naturally).
The question I asked the students wasn’t really about hope. Nor did I set out with the intention of changing minds. Perhaps I harbored only a modest hope (!) that I’m doing my bit to affect them positively. But the progression in sentiment gave me pause. It cannot be all hype and doom and gloom.
There is still room for that thing we humans are so attached to and will never relinquish — hope.
The legion in the middle, for whom our lifting needs to be the heaviest
Reflecting on recurring themes you may have also heard about or have opinions on — such as the generational shift and questions about the future of those who come next (meaning, the students, or more broadly, our children) — I’ve come to refer to these individuals as the legion in the middle.
Legion, because they are more numerous than the handful of us who routinely meet up at conferences or industry events where we’re collectively able to make sense of things.
These are the people who, often without having made the deliberate choice, find themselves stuck between hype and hope, pessimism or optimism, and not knowing which way is north. Looking at it from our relatively privileged positions of professionals who have been around the block for a while and can benefit from hindsight, this audience urgently needs our support, especially because their outcomes — or ours, for that matter — are not fixed.
Our reality is malleable. What matters is the intentionality with which we approach the act of fashioning it, for ourselves or others.
The spark preceding motion
We may not be able to choose the reality forced onto us, but we do get to shape how we grow into or from it. Whether you're a student facing a wall of AI noise or a seasoned professional who’s learned to tune it out, you're navigating a world in motion. The hype, hope, and uncertainty are all part of the same landscape. None of it is fixed.
If there's one thing the workshop reminded me of, it’s that the distance between confusion and clarity isn’t as vast as it seems. Sometimes, it’s a matter of framing. Sometimes, it’s just the right nudge at the right moment.
And if we — those of us with experience, perspective, or even just the ability to ask better questions — can help someone else gain a foothold, then maybe we’ve done more than survive the noise. Maybe we’ve helped light the spark that opens a new path.
