When designing that “vibe translation” system, I did apply my experience as a translator, similarly …

Translation is great to discuss LLMs. Thanks for sharing your experience. On one side translation is not very valued by most people. It is rare that people know who translated a book, for example. It is a pity but people do not read much these days. Additionally, or maybe because of the above, translation is often paid in terms of number of lines or words, even before AI. A bit like software security, it is often sadly just a check at the end. IMHO the only future-proof translation fields are legal (because a human can be put in prison or pay a fine) or live translation/interpretation (because a human can go in front of people, meet them at an event, etc.).

This is a really great comparison to draw. This actually made me think that this feeling of going from mastering a craft to working on large scale systems is probably how someone who was passionate about cars felt when they went from building cars one by one, knowing how the whole machine works to then having to take a job on an assembly line. Fortunately I think anything pertaining to vibe coding/engineering/analytics is still more enjoyable and less grim than working on an assembly line, but the human feelings remain nonetheless.

I spoke with some professional translators early on and they were just in denial, getting even upset at the idea that an AI could replace them. I didn't push too much but felt bad for them, as they couldn't realize what was going to happen to their field. I really think that translation must be the most impacted field by AI.