What are your guy's thoughts on Japanese Game Developers on using AI translations?

[kokonatsu17234]

Falcom and other JRPG developers have spoken and they're in support of AI translations, which is possibly to avoid woke localization issues,
but also mainly to save money I guess since it cost less on their end.
do you think it's gonna affect the story narrative at all? considering AI translation isn't the best right now specially on the Japanese language. ( as far as I know its still rough around the edge. )

 

[Waffles]

Actually... I have been relying on AI translation to get some of my work done (translating a personal WW2 journal from East Prussian dialect to English), and I'm really impressed by how that goes. Not only does the AI produce accurate translations, but also keeps many of the distinctive phrases and tones used by the author while writing on a language that really has no proxy nor equivalent today.

I think this can be done, and that's even sensible to do it.

But you GOTTA have a human overseeing the project.

 

[kokonatsu17234]

i see, i see... well glad to know it's better than what i used to know
I actually did see the 80% ChatGPT translation of Frontier Gate Boost+
i haven't gotten that far yet assuming that no alteration is done to the translation
i guess we are in the clear for it.

 

[myncy]

Prefacing that I don't make translations and would trust those making them over whatever I think.

I think like many AI products, translation tools can be a helpful tool to make translations. But I am concerned they will be presented as a "final product" when translation and localization requires more attention and specific line-by-line consideration that AI tools can't yet provide and maybe should never be tasked to. Also broadly with AI product, I have questions about the information used to feed them and the ethics of using stolen material.

 

[Don Patch]

Coming from the devs/writers, if they themselves determine it's close enough to what they wanted to convey, it's gravy. Can be a useful tool. And there's a good chance there's an editor/proof reader familiar with both languages on any localization team or office that'll be able to correct things.

If it's a decision made in-spite of the devs/writers by some suit to save a few bucks... well, they can go eat a plastic bag.

 

[Adrastia]

But you GOTTA have a human overseeing the project.

THIS.

AI isn't anywhere near perfected enough to properly translate human languages. It may never be. Because it takes a human touch to understand the nuances of language to begin with. I also don't want to see jobs taken away from pro translators because it's cheaper to replace when with AI.

In the end I'd rather have a game translated than not at all. When it comes to fan translations I am hoping AI allows the translation of many games that might otherwise never get one. I'd rather have it 100% human done. But AI is the future no matter how much we may not like it.

 

[Strategist]

I don't see the point in relying on AI if you have the human option. Might as well pay a human to translate it. I guess a template generated by AI can serve as a guide for the translator to speed up his process, but you don't want to rely on machines to do the thinking for you. There are specific areas where AI will never be able to convey proper translations. Those are culturally contextual sayings, for example "early bird gets the worm" might translate into a completely different saying in another culture and a literal translation is incorrect. And any type of jokes or humor. They often rely on cultural context and those are hard to translate from one culture to another.

The discourse around translation online is incredibly misleading and toxic. Those who praise AI translation replacing humans are doing so with agendas against wokeism, misleading data or misunderstanding of what the technology is capable of. I say this as a computer science major (I don't mean to brag, but I've had these discussions before and some people seem to think they know more about computing than everyone)

 

[Waffles]

THIS.

AI isn't anywhere near perfected enough to properly translate human languages. It may never be. Because it takes a human touch to understand the nuances of language to begin with. I also don't want to see jobs taken away from pro translators because it's cheaper to replace when with AI.

In the end I'd rather have a game translated than not at all. When it comes to fan translations I am hoping AI allows the translation of many games that might otherwise never get one. I'd rather have it 100% human done. But AI is the future no matter how much we may not like it.

Completely agree.

An unsupervised translation can go... like this:

 

[VampireLord1024]

I guess they probably shouldn't use AI to translate games.

 

[It's Thinking 2]

Isn't that like using Google Translate?

 

[gerorisuto]

There is a very very long way to go until AI can properly translate Japanese. It is flawed even in very basic sentences. As everyone else is saying, I hope that there is someone overseeing the project if they are going to use it.

Post automatically merged: Oct 28, 2024

Isn't that like using Google Translate?

Pretty much.

 

[dejiko]

i like it if it means no more cringe localizations >.>

 

[TheDuke_11037]

I think it's a useful tool for use in combination of human translators. I think we still need human translators since there's just certain things that AI won't be able to do/portray when it come to translating dialogue, certain cultural context/naunce, etc. It has an extremely long way to go before it can be able to do that, if at all.

Also the woke discourse when it comes to it is an exaggerated non issue tbh. Haven't played a game where something that people argue about that is big deal (i.e One line of dialogue in a 80 hour jrpg) or even there at all.

 

[It's Thinking 2]

I think it's a useful tool for use in combination of human translators. I think we still need human translators since I thinks there's just certain things that AI won't be able to do/portray when it come to translating dialogue, certain cultural context/naunce, etc. It has an extremely long way to go before it can be able to do that, if at all.

Also the woke discourse when it comes to it is an exaggerated non issue tbh. Haven't played a game where something that people argue about that is big deal (i.e One line of dialogue in a 80 hour jrpg) or even there at all.

Right. It's complete exaggeration. I look forward to the Lunar remakes.

 

[GVSE]

A big company shouldn't be allowed, by law, to reduce their specialized staff and put AI in their places. I know the translations can be ok, i know an editor supervising can be ok, but their results are hollow. If AI gets something right, it is just by chance. Purpose matters, and the purpose of most of the big companies being adopting AI is to profit at the expense of an author's work.

On the other hand, in the world of fan translations, for example, people shouldn't be bitching about it. C'mon, nobody is making money from it and all we want is to finally give people an easier access to important historical pieces, hidden gems or whatever... in the moment that some other person be able to launch a new and better human translation of a game, great, everybody will prefer that! The problem is when a fan is translating something as a means to getting some fame and not as a genuine public service.

 

[Waffles]

A big company shouldn't be allowed, by law, to reduce their specialized staff and put AI in their places.

I'm fairly sure Microsoft was already on the task of replacing their quality assurance team with AI.

That's predatory.

 

[kokonatsu17234]

A big company shouldn't be allowed, by law, to reduce their specialized staff and put AI in their places. I know the translations can be ok, i know an editor supervising can be ok, but their results are hollow. If AI gets something right, it is just by chance. Purpose matters, and the purpose of most of the big companies being adopting AI is to profit at the expense of an author's work.

On the other hand, in the world of fan translations, for example, people shouldn't bitching about it. C'mon, nobody is making money from it and all we want is to finally give people an easier access to important historical pieces, hidden gems or whatever... in the moment that some other person be able to launch a new and better human translation of a game, great, everybody will prefer that! The problem is when a fan is translating something as a means to getting some fame and not as a genuine public service.

it's only illegal if the specialized staff or translator is permanently employee.
however it's completely legal if they are contractual workers, that's the loophole in that law
but i agree with what you said about the community within the fan translations.

 

[Urutau RX]

at the end of the day they're gonna need at least ONE person in charge of not letting any typo or bad translation made by the AI slip by
I've seen some japanese comics translated via machine translation and hoo boy, it does get trashy, reaching the point of pure nonsense in some dialogues
Such is life, let's just hope that there's always someone willing to do a proper translation and with the right tools for it

 

[Strategist]

at the end of the day they're gonna need at least ONE person in charge of not letting any typo or bad translation made by the AI slip by
I've seen some japanese comics translated via machine translation and hoo boy, it does get trashy, reaching the point of pure nonsense in some dialogues
Such is life, let's just hope that there's always someone willing to do a proper translation and with the right tools for it

That's my point, the tech isn't good enough where you can just set it and forget it. So you need one person to supervise the AI. At that point you might as well hire someone to translate the entire script because the person is already doing the work to proofread what the AI is spitting out. And the AI isn't going to write with a pleasing natural style either, so the supervisor also has to clean up the text and make it readable. At that point, the gains that the AI is providing in the translation process are minimal.

 

[Mopeybloke]

Translation is a work of writing creativity. Because there are no true equivalents everywhere. If you are to convey an equivalent experience to the target audience, then you must bridge a cultural gap and that will take creative work. You must also probably have a good interpretation of the meaning behind the story before you set about translating it, to make more informed choices. In essence, AI translations are going to be slop.
I also think that "woke" localisations are a political pet issue that is vanishingly small, and it probably has little weight on the decision to use AI.

 

[otogirisou]

Translation is a work of writing creativity.

This is exactly the reason why most translations are shit. Translation is not art, doing it "creatively" is a mistake. Translation is just telling the meaning, if the dialogue say "A", just say "A", etc.

AI translations are going to be slop.

I think i can agree to some degree with this if the source language is mandarin, but with japanese, now it's good enough. I know this because i am fluent in japanese. If your concern is "AI can't understand context/nuance", human translators have this problem too, and it's been a problem for a long time. Human translators tend to break the characters with their interpretation, like making a quirky girl bitchy etc, and they'll say "that's actually what's natural in English" as an excuse.

 

[dropsmegamega]

can't wait for JRPGs to get that Korean MMO style dialogues!

 

[kokonatsu17234]

Translation is a work of writing creativity. Because there are no true equivalents everywhere. If you are to convey an equivalent experience to the target audience, then you must bridge a cultural gap and that will take creative work. You must also probably have a good interpretation of the meaning behind the story before you set about translating it, to make more informed choices. In essence, AI translations are going to be slop.
I also think that "woke" localisations are a political pet issue that is vanishingly small, and it probably has little weight on the decision to use AI.

I can see the "creativity" in a bit with trying to find a fitting word for the translation so that it make sense,
but i would go as far as to call it creativity since translation is literally just making hello to hi.
I wouldn't say that woke political translation is a small issue either, it's actually been plaguing the entirety of media for a good while now which was exposed after the whole treehouse production incident which exposed a lot of woke zoomer translations in media and only just resurfaced again. also have you seen the maid dragon anime dub?

But i do agree that AI translation is going to be slop to some games lol

 

[Gingervitis]

Falcom and other JRPG developers have spoken and they're in support of AI translations, which is possibly to avoid woke localization issues,
but also mainly to save money I guess since it cost less on their end.
do you think it's gonna affect the story narrative at all? considering AI translation isn't the best right now specially on the Japanese language. ( as far as I know its still rough around the edge. )

I’m torn. On one hand, even removing modern leftism from the equation, this is undeniably and objectively better than what passes for modern localization nowadays. You only need to look at something like Dragon Quest, Valkyria Chronicles, Unicorn Overlord, or anything from modern Falcom to understand that modern localizers are just egotistical bilinguals who couldn’t hack it as a writer, and think they’re better than people who can’t speak two languages. You see this all the time with people who speak spanish, and the employers that feed into their delusions.

But on the other, translation is as much an art as it is a science. You want to keep as direct a translation as possible, but it’s possible to translate things too literally and come up with something goofy, nonsensical, or just outright incorrect. So eventually, you’re going to need someone to rewrite the dialogue. This brings us back to the problem of, “How do we keep amateur writers from messing with the source material.”

 

[Yousef]

AI gets a bad rep because of art but it’s generally great at mechanical tasks and the alike. Could also for languages that don’t get a lot of spotlight like Arabic or Portuguese.