In Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, life has come a full circle. The end-of-the-world prophecy has fulfilled itself; the war between humans and machines—Judgement Day—was inevitable.

In “Return of the Machines,” the Glocalization Organization of Asia Pacific (GoAP) is not making another installment of the Terminator franchise, of course. Instead, we seek to explore the ever-present role that advanced technology such as AI-assisted marketing automation, neural machine translation, and blockchain-enabled commerce, may play in globalization and localization.

This is not about the rise of the machines in which humans battle machines for jobs. It isn’t about the arrival of the machines that spells doom for our economic prospects. Instead, with our 2021 GoAP conference theme, we argue that machines have always been here. They never left. This is a narrative about machines’ return to the spotlight and to the forefront of our consciousness.

From the invention of the computing machine of the 1950s, the ARPANET in the 1960s, the personal computer revolution of the 1970s, world wide web in the 1990s, smart phones in the 2000s, and 5G in the 2010s and beyond, the age of the Internet of Things has truly dawned upon us and opened up new opportunities for globalization and localization.

We are not remiss of the persistent debate in which some argue that machines are taking our jobs. Some interpreters fear that AI-assisted interpretation will reduce assignments. Translators worry that demand for their work will be replaced by machine translation. GoAP does not believe that this is a story of humans versus machines; that is an outdated narrative. We believe in a vision of humans and machines working in conjunction—albeit not always without friction and tension.

GoAP 2021 is about embracing the role of machines in localization and globalization—and in fact, in our lives. Thus, we invite proposals that explore how embracing machines can reshape our globalization efforts and localization techniques.

• What are the practical, business applications for artificial intelligence in localization?
• What are the techniques and best practices for handling Asian languages with machine translation?
• What situations and contexts do customers in various industries use AI-assisted interpretation to solve their business problems?

These are some of the questions we seek to explore but the conference is not limited to these by any means. We invite participants, stakeholders, contributors, and decision-makers who are engaged in globalization, internationalization, and localization. We cordially invite marketers and sales professionals who are looking to expand beyond borders; we would like to hear from localizers who translate, adapt, and package an organization’s products and services for a different culture, audience, and language. We request proposals from technologists who develop the enabling tools and platforms that make globalization and localization possible—whether it’s in AI, machine translation, voice technology, or robotics.