Crunchyroll Uses AI Translations Months After CEO Claimed “No AI”

8 comments

1. Corpos should really learn that being quiet and doing whatever is far far better than speaking about current topics for cheap points and then eating your words like an asshole.

2. Honestly not surprising, the AI usage doubts where there already many months ago. As long a business doesn’t declare law bound statements never trust their PR.

   After all they said “not considering AI in the creative process”, too many extra steps to instead just say “we won’t use AI”. If taken to the letter, they’re “not considering” because AI has been already implemented, they’re already well beyond the “considering” step.

   Edit: at the end of the day AI is just a tool, a very sophisticated tool. It’s about the people behind it, as usual short sighted or too quick when it comes to easy corner cutting.

3. In this case it’s the anime’s creator, Cygames, that has provided the subtitles (and used AI during the translation). Possibly so they can later sell the license to another streaming service without too much overhead. 

   Crunchyroll is in all likelihood not allowed to alter them without approval. 

4. Translating stuff is a good use of AI in my mind. A real skilled person translating would be better probably but i would rather have an ai translation than nothing at all.

5. I see no issue in Crunchyroll using AI for translations, especially since AIs do a great job at translations.

   Yet, i think they should have human editor check them one last time

6. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with taking advantage of new technology to reduce workforce and operating costs. I don’t understand why companies receive backlash over something that has been happening since forever.

7. Maybe I’m in the minority here, but it looks like they used it for German subtitles.

   I’m guessing for any English subtitling, they’re still using a localization expert.

   Finding someone to localize Japanese to German, Japanese to X language; etc is gonna become an expensive resource; and international users are probably significantly less for them compared to for English.

   Using AI to generate the bulk of them for foreign languages is probably worthwhile. Just get a human to review it after.

   Really they’re just dumb for announcing they wouldn’t be using AI. Should have simply kept their mouth shut about it.

8. AI generated subs are better than no subs at all, I guess, but please tell me they’re getting people to proof read. Japanese is a notoriously difficult language and often it isn’t as simple as just putting the dialogue through Google translate. You need someone who can actually understand context and can add translator’s notes for things that might not make sense to a non-Japanese viewer.

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