Day 1 - The Future

Times of profound change invite us to reconsider the very foundations upon which truth and trust are built. Throughout history, transformations in scientific and medical knowledge have unsettled established hierarchies of expertise, revealing that authority is not a fixed attribute but a relational and negotiated one. Trust, in this sense, emerges not from certainty but from shared practices of meaning-making, interpretation, and care. This keynote turns to historical episodes from medicine and science (moments when new instruments, concepts, and infrastructures disrupt familiar worlds) to illuminate how professionals have confronted situations where change unfolded faster than their existing frameworks could accommodate.

These past experiences suggest that technological upheaval does not simply introduce novel tools; it reshapes the moral, epistemic, and emotional conditions under which professionals must operate. In the present moment, the acceleration of AI within the translation field raises similar questions, but with unprecedented speed. Translators today encounter not only shifting technical environments, but transformations that challenge long-held assumptions about human judgment, the nature of linguistic truth, and the grounds on which expertise can be trusted. Through this philosophical and historical perspective, the talk invites participants to reflect on how truth and professional authority can be sustained and reimagined in a landscape where change occurs rapidly, unpredictably, and with limited margins for adaptation — and how cultivating resilient forms of trust may be essential for navigating an increasingly hybrid human–machine world.