Some may think that the remarkable development of machine translation is bad news to those learning English. For, due to the technology, their English skills seem to become less valuable.

If almost perfect translation is realized, that assessment would be right. But what if the development of the technology stagnates at somewhere, for example, at 900 TOEIC score level? When you need precision in reading, you cannot rely on that technology. And if you lack English skills, you cannot read the original text.

And not a few English learners may be demotivated by this technology, so that they become less eager to learn English. There might be less people with English skills. If so, having English skills become more valuable, particularly if the skills are beyond the machine's level.