Anime streaming giant Crunchyroll is reportedly looking into generative artificial intelligence for subtitling and closed captioning, as confirmed by its president Rahul Purini.
The confirmation came during an interview in the Verge's decoder podcast. The president answered a multitude of questions regarding the anime industry in general and how Crunchyroll looks to grow in the coming years.
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Books of the "Berserk" manga collection are displayed at the Paris Book Fair 2019 (salon du livre) at the Parc des Expositions in Paris on March 18, 2019 in Paris
When questioned about exciting technologies, such as AI being used in the anime business, Purini responded that AI is obviously something that the firm explores in a number of processes across the organization.
He claims that Crunchyroll is now testing subtitles and closed captioning. The president went on to add that they were working on translating speech to text and looking for methods to improve and streamline their processes so that subtitles could be completed in other languages across the world faster and released as soon to the Japanese release as possible.
AI-Generated Subtitles Before AI Dubbing
While AI-generated subtitles could be on the horizon, Purini states that anime dubbing still has a long way to go. He states that AI dubbing is still a long way off, as dubs are often adaptations. Purini claims that dubs are not direct translations, implying that it is a creative process. He emphasizes that there are teams dedicated to adjusting the dubs for each area or region.
He also claims to have the object that has to be dubbed, but they are unable to modify the animation itself, so they must get the lip sync accurate.
Purini then states that they do not believe the technology is ready yet, but that they are exploring it in other areas such as customization and discovery, as well as how the firm might employ generative AI to improve the user experience.
AI Translation
The first episode of The Yuzuki Family's Four Sons premiered in October 2023, with what appeared to be machine-translated English subtitles that were overly literal and incorrect, as well as grammatical errors.
Crunchyroll was compelled to remove the episode from its streaming service after receiving complaints on social media and through the website.
A recent study proved AI translations to be unreliable due to their poor quality. The findings revealed that, after reviewing over six billion lines online, more than half had been translated into two or more languages, with an alarming amount of low translation quality.
While the reliability of AI translations is uncertain, there are apparent advantages to their use. A recent report found that China's online literary sector has increased global sales due to the rapid development of AI technology, which enables Chinese web novels to be translated quickly for foreign consumption.
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