EX:CHANGE 2026: Ethics in our professional world
At the seventh ITI conference in Nottingham in 1994, a motion was raised concerning whether translators and interpreters have an ethical responsibility for the subject matter they translate or interpret, over and above their responsibility to provide an accurate rendering. While on the one side, impassioned accounts called for translators to refuse “to translate anything contrary to human rights”, on the other it was argued that it is not a translator’s place to be an ‘intellectual policeman’, that it is “not up to the translator to make moral judgements”, and that “they could speak their minds in private” but “translators should avoid becoming representatives of ‘political correctness’”. The motion was rejected by the majority.
Thirty-two years later, it’s far less controversial for ethics to occupy a more central position in our professional lives. Those familiar (and undeniably important) guidelines calling for us to carry out our work with accuracy and impartiality still hold, often largely unchanged, but we’ve greatly expanded our focus beyond the narrower text-based ethics that was so divisive in the 1990s. The same questions of responsibility loom large, but they now cover a multitude of new contexts and forms, while responses have become more polarised than ever.
Indeed, these are unquestionably challenging times for many in the language professions. Surveys and academic research have long pointed to wide-ranging issues relating to pay, working conditions, status, wellbeing, data ownership and more, not to mention the global context beyond our professional realm. We all agree that ethics matters, but is ethical purity only possible for those with economic security? How do we reconcile what we stand for with pressing deadlines, disruptive technologies, client pressure and bills to pay? Do we have an ethical duty to care for our collective wellbeing, or is that another burden pushed onto individual practitioners?
To make matters more complicated, where does the responsibility lie for these issues? What can we do to address the situations where these issues are most pressing? Or is it the responsibility of politicians, regulators, tech companies, LSPs, academics or maybe even associations to take this on?
And what of the relationship between ethics and technology, and particularly AI, which continues to loom large after years of seemingly unending hype and hyperbole? Is it a revolutionary panacea that will liberate us all from unwanted labour? Is it just another tool to call upon in certain situations, boosting productivity and reshaping workflows for a section of the profession in a similar way to the many waves of technological disruption that translators have faced over the last 70 years? Or, is it a moral abomination, burning up the planet and giving short-sighted corporations the opportunity to cut costs using systems built on the back of mass data theft, meaning that resistance is our only option? And, if so, are we complicit in data theft by using these very tools, or irresponsible if we refuse to adapt?
Finally, and perhaps most uncomfortably, where are we going as a professional group? Where do we want to head, and do we have the agency to control our destination? How can we safeguard the present and the future?
This intense questioning is deliberate, and ethics inevitably leads us into these challenging spaces: wide-ranging discussions, shades of grey, contrasting, conflicting perspectives and no easy answers.
Returning to the anecdote at the start of this piece, no matter where you stand on this issue, or any of the others, it offers a neat illustration of the thought-provoking, divisive conversations that ethics invites, and also points to ITI’s long history in creating spaces to address the key questions of the day via respectful, collective debate.
The first iteration of EX:CHANGE will offer an open space to address today’s key ethical questions. While we can’t expect to find clear-cut answers within a moral landscape that is more complex than ever before, creating this safe and accepting environment is an important step, as we listen and reflect on what ethical good practice and working sustainability look like in 2026 and beyond.