By Silvana G. Chaves

This article traces the 80-year evolution of simultaneous interpreting, from its creation at the Nuremberg trials to today’s challenges posed by remote simultaneous interpreting and AI.

In a world that advances relentlessly, pausing for no one, the profession of conference interpreting is celebrating a major milestone: its 80th anniversary. From its inception amid the solemnity of the Nuremberg trials to its ever-evolving present, its history has been marked by changes that also pause for no one.

Innovation Born of Necessity

On November 20, 1945, the Allied Powers convened the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg to prosecute 24 leaders of the Third Reich for crimes against humanity. These defendants sat in the dock under the unyielding scrutiny of judges, military officers, prosecutors, defense counsel, witnesses, and a global public that followed the proceedings through extensive media coverage.

Each of the four Allied countries that had formed the International Military Tribunal (the U.S., France, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union) provided one judge and one alternate for the court. The trial would be conducted in four languages, and it was essential to guarantee the right to a fair trial for all the defendants. To handle this unprecedented situation, new interpreting methods had to be used, since consecutive interpreting—the only technique taught at the University of Geneva and used at the time—did not provide the agility required and would have probably increased the length of the trial to three years instead of the 10 months it actually lasted.

It was Colonel Léon Dostert—renowned for his linguistic aptitude and for his role as an interpreter during the German occupation of France—who played a decisive role in addressing this challenge. Building on initial experiments conducted in Geneva, Dostert organized a demonstration of what was then known as “telephone interpreting” in Washington, DC. This demonstration persuaded Justice Robert H. Jackson, an American Supreme Court justice appointed by President Harry S. Truman to serve as the chief U.S. prosecutor at Nuremberg, that simultaneous interpreting was the only viable means to conduct an agile, multilingual trial—a solution that garnered the endorsement of the other Allied Powers.

Thus, three interpreter teams were formed, each consisting of 12 interpreters—three per target language: German, French, Russian, and English. The recruitment process was rigorous, assessing not only linguistic competence but also psychological resilience, as these interpreters would face a cognitive and emotional task without precedent in the history of language mediation.

Archival images of these pioneering interpreters attest to the formidable working conditions they endured—performing a function for which no professional blueprint yet existed, albeit one that would directly shape the judgments ultimately handed down by Judge Geoffrey Lawrence, the lead British judge. The Nuremberg trials thus marked a turning point in 20th-century history and opened the door to a profession that has continued to evolve ever since—while staying true to its guiding principle: to communicate accurately and effectively in any language.

In the aftermath of Nuremberg, five interpreters who had participated in the trials introduced simultaneous interpreting at the newly established United Nations in 1946, entrenching the practice throughout its agencies, programs, and specialized bodies. Other multilateral institutions—including the Bretton Woods institutions (the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (now the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe)—soon followed suit. By the 1950s, simultaneous interpreting had become the operational norm for international multilingual communication. In 1955, the founding of the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC) provided a crucial institutional framework, upholding both technical standards and professional ethics for practitioners worldwide.

Simultaneous interpreting subsequently expanded into the private sector, where interpreters faced a new challenge: adapting to a different form of communication, one with corporate audiences instead of international organizations.

From Nuremberg to Remote Simultaneous Interpreting

Fast-forwarding through the pages of history, filled with the countless changes interpreters have had to adapt to, we arrive at January 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic—a moment that changed the world’s course and opened a new, unfamiliar window for professional interpreters: remote simultaneous interpreting (RSI).

In the midst of massive uncertainty brought by a pandemic that paralyzed the world, forcing it to adapt to a new reality, interpreters faced an unprecedented work context—just as the founders of the profession did eight decades prior. Back then, IBM had quickly created the technology that made simultaneous interpreting possible at the Nuremberg trials, building on its initial 1927 invention known as the “Hushaphone Filene-Finley IBM,” or telephonic interpreting. Now, in times of COVID, many companies rushed to launch various online platforms onto the market—often untested and lacking sufficient technical safeguards.

Communication is intrinsic to the human condition—whether in freedom or confinement—and interpreters are a crucial conduit. Adapting to the demands of remote work became, quite simply, a matter of professional survival. Overnight, interpreters found themselves alone before a computer screen, without the support of technicians, shouldering new tasks beyond the sacred triad of listening, processing, and delivering. With RSI, multitasking reached its peak.

Five years on, RSI has solidified as a mode of interpreting. Hybrid solutions between in-person and remote events have emerged through specialized hubs that allow for a mixed working format with certain advantages—though they still fall short of the conditions provided by fully in-person interpreting in traditional booths. Remote interpreting, be it from home or via hubs, has found its main foothold in the private sector, where clients see it as a way to cut costs.

Yet we must resist the temptation to demonize this modality outright. For brief meetings or webinars, remote interpreting can indeed be a viable solution—provided that proper conditions are met and that the ground gained is not eroded by weak Wi-Fi or poor connections that throw us back to the rudimentary working conditions of our forerunners. (For example, interpreters at Nuremberg did not have soundproof booths and had to work in such a way that if a defendant spoke in German, the German interpreter stayed silent while the German-to-French, German-to-English, and German-to-Russian interpreters did their work simultaneously through their microphones.)

Hence the imperative to educate clients—because we must not confuse “adaptation” with “surrender.” Just as the interpreters at Nuremberg paved the way for our profession and fought to establish working standards that allow us to carry out our communicative work under optimal conditions today, we must continue to improve and defend those conditions for future generations. And this imperative is now more compelling than ever before, as a new player steps onto the stage: AI.

Here’s Lucy!

I would like to pause here for a moment to share a personal experience…

A few months ago, a client for whom I had been working remotely since the pandemic—covering meetings on macroeconomics, international finance, and regional cooperation— called to inform me that my services would no longer be required because they would be using Lucy at their next meeting.

In our profession, one tends to know most colleagues by name or reputation; yet Lucy did not ring a bell—but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Lucy could have been an excellent colleague and professional interpreter whom I just hadn’t met yet, and whom the client had decided to hire instead. My surprise, however, was not about not knowing this “colleague”—it came when the client told me Lucy was a robot. For the first time in my 33-year career, I felt like a character in an Isaac Asimov novel, forced to compete with a machine. I could not help but recall the film I, Robot—except now it was I, Human, displaced by the inexorable tide of automation, despite years of effort and dedication to this client.

The news was bitter to swallow. I thought immediately of the young interpreters who are now training or just embarking on their careers, and could not help feeling distressed. Yet life presses on, so I kept fulfilling my other assignments with the same care and enthusiasm as always. I felt Lucy breathing down my neck, and I knew I had to double down on educating my clients on the risks of entrusting their words to a machine.

In this sense, we human interpreters possess two undeniable advantages and irrefutable arguments over AI: confidentiality and the subtlety of human subjectivity—facets no algorithm can yet replicate.

Back to the story… After a few months, that same client called again to say Lucy had been causing some problems. Apparently, our robotic colleague struggled to make sense of ideas when speakers wandered from a strict “subject–verb–predicate” structure—something most of us humans often do. It seems Lucy lacked the algorithm to handle subordinate ideas, incomplete thoughts, irony, subliminal messages, and the tone of voice needed to understand when a “no” sometimes actually means “yes.” In short, Lucy had trouble discerning the nuances of the message; in other words, she could translate words, but she could not interpret meaning.

The client asked me to come back on board, and I resumed working on their meetings. Still, I’m far from believing I’ve won the battle against Lucy. She remains out there in the digital ether, absorbing my words and those of many other colleagues whose voices are being recorded today—often for unknown purposes and without our explicit consent. The question of interpreters’ intellectual property remains thorny and unresolved, particularly in the private sector, where recordings are frequently made without prior notice. To protect the future of our profession, defending our rights is paramount. Here, once again, the role of professional associations—especially AIIC—stands as an indispensable bulwark in a world increasingly indifferent to boundaries.

Adapting Wisely

In sum, the milestones that have shaped our profession—Nuremberg, the institutionalization of simultaneous interpreting, RSI, the advent of AI (and whatever lies ahead)—form a narrative of constant challenge and adaptation. Each time we step into a booth and switch on a microphone, we stand guard against an encroaching army of algorithms eager to claim our place. It falls to us to honor the legacy of our Nuremberg forebears—by reminding our clients of the irreplaceable value we bring and the profound humanity of our craft. To adapt wisely or to surrender passively—that is the question.

Microphone on…

Additional Reading

Gaiba, Francesca. The Origins of Simultaneous Interpretation: The Nuremberg Trial and Its Impact on Conference Interpreting (University of Ottawa Press, 1998). Persico, Joseph E. Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial (Viking Press, 1994). Baigorri–Jalón, Jesús. Interpreting at the United Nations: A History (Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 2004). Gesse, Tanya. “Lunch with a Legend,” The ATA Chronicle (American Translators Association, September 2004), 44–48. Klaus Ziegler. Simultaneous Interpreting: Its Origins and Development (John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2007). Naredo, Rodrigo. “La hazaña de la interpretación simultánea: de los juicios de Núremberg a la amenaza de la IA,” El País (June 25, 2025). Distance Interpreting Guidelines (International Association of Conference Interpreters, 2025). Equipment Requirements (On-Site & Remote) Conference Interpreting (International Association of Conference Interpreters, 2023).

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Silvana G. Chaves, CT, is an ATA-certified English>Spanish translator and a member of the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC). She has 33 years of experience as a sworn translator and conference interpreter working in the Latin American and European markets. She was a visiting professor at Florida International University, Plattsburgh University, and the Catholic University of Paris—Cluny ESEIT in Madrid, Spain, teaching various programs on simultaneous interpreting. Currently based in Madrid, she is the owner of Estudio Chaves & Asociados, an agency specializing in financial and legal translation and interpreting services. chaves@estudio-chaves.com