The expectation is that AI translation will also become quasi-realtime, so for in-person interactions, too.
Many cultures will probably much rather interact with a foreigner speaking proficient AI translation, than a language-learner speaking with a poor accent and constant grammatical imperfections. Go to the Netherlands now as a Dutch learner who hasn't reached B2 level, for example, and local people won't like it, it just wastes their time compared to using English.
I happily go abroad and speak with my hosts in my rudimentary German, and we are all happy. Sometimes we shift to their slightly-less-rudimentary English, and that's good too. Although we sometimes resort to machine translation to look up a specific word or phrase when we are both stuck, we have never felt the need to use real-time spoken machine translation.
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The expectation is that AI translation will also become quasi-realtime, so for in-person interactions, too.
Many cultures will probably much rather interact with a foreigner speaking proficient AI translation, than a language-learner speaking with a poor accent and constant grammatical imperfections. Go to the Netherlands now as a Dutch learner who hasn't reached B2 level, for example, and local people won't like it, it just wastes their time compared to using English.
I happily go abroad and speak with my hosts in my rudimentary German, and we are all happy. Sometimes we shift to their slightly-less-rudimentary English, and that's good too. Although we sometimes resort to machine translation to look up a specific word or phrase when we are both stuck, we have never felt the need to use real-time spoken machine translation.