Shogakukan's Novelous to use AI translations
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Via Anime News Network
So ANN reported on Shogakukan's Novelous to be using AI translations for the US and Canada to get out 400 light novels and novels in the next 2 years. This is a horrible idea and as much as I would love more convenient access to Japanese books in English I cannot stand by this blatant disrespect for authors, translators/localizers, and readers. Not only are they using machine translations but, they are seeming to also plan to change names to more westernized forms because "Japanese names are hard." Sorry but, we cannot allow this to become the status quo. The best thing we can do is not support the bots on this. We need to make sure publishers understand we value human experience to rapid low quality translations and localizations. Everyone deserves better than this. -
My reaction to this news:
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@n33k5 said in Shogakukan's Novelous to use AI translations:
they are seeming to also plan to change names to more westernized forms because "Japanese names are hard."
The MC is named Steve Jones, Yen to dollars, ramen to cheeseburgers. Back to the dark ages of over-localized translations :(
Some stories might survive this but part of why I read LNs is the different culture. It's the same reason why I watch "foreign" movies and TV shows.
Plus, AI LLMs have only short-term "memory" for their token set with no knowledge of anything outside of that small window into the story. No memory of past chapters, characters, or the overall plot to bring to the translation just predicting what an equivalent sentence would be in English.
