One of the major talking points in the Hollywood strike last year involved AI. Following its rapid growth, writers and actors feared studio execs might use AI to replace human involvement to cut costs. And with Crunchyroll CEO’s new statements pointing in that direction, fans haven’t backed away from showcasing their dismay towards this practice.
Instead of relying on dubs for animes, most fans usually prefer watching them with subtitles in order to get the closest experience to the original Japanese release possible. And while for years, professional translators were given the job of creating subtitles that don’t lose the essence of the original, it seems, the studios are aiming to replace these professionals with AI.
Crunchyroll Is Looking to Integrate AI Into Its Structure to Create Subtitles
Crunchyroll, known for distributing and licensing anime, is aiming to integrate AI more into its structure to create subtitles at a rapid pace according to CEO Rahul Purini. In an hour-long interview with The Verge, Purini explained they want to make Crunchyroll a more viable option for anime enthusiasts. While they’re looking to incorporate AI more into their workflow in the future, as of now, they are testing AI to create subtitles to provide fans with the most authentic experience possible.
“A.I. is definitely something we think about at a lot of different workflows in the organization. Right now, one of the areas we’re very focused on testing is subtitling and our closed captioning where we go from speech to text. ‘How do we improve and optimize our processes where we can get the subtitles done in various languages across the world faster so that we can launch as close to the Japanese release as possible?’. So that’s definitely an area that we’re focused on.”
Reasonably, the direction Crunchyroll is heading caused a lot of fans to cry foul, especially after experiencing the low-quality subtitles in The Yuzuki Family’s Four Sons‘ debut episode last year.
Furious Fans Shared Their Dismay With Crunchyroll
Debuting last year on the platform, The Yuzuki Family’s Four Sons was criticized for its low-quality subtitles, as apart from being awkward, it was also nonsensical at times. Crunchyroll eventually took it down, and fans doubted that the subpar quality of its subtitles was a result of AI. And with the Crunchyroll CEO officially stating that they’re looking to go in that direction, fans are less than thrilled about it. Not only did fans share concerns over translators potentially losing jobs, but some are convinced nuance in language is best captured by humans, rather than AI.
RIP translators. I wonder what anime awards 2024 dub gonna be like. It was havoc last year.
— Recon (@Rec0n1888) February 28, 2024
extremely common Crunchyroll L
— ImoutoGang (@Imouto_Gang) February 28, 2024
Here we go, how many people will loose their job after this ? T_T
— Geek Evasion Δ ❗📦 🇲🇦 (@GeekEvasion) February 28, 2024
They chose the cheap way….
"Quantity over Quality"— Abdulla (@DemonLord307) February 28, 2024
gonna be like the youtube auto-generated captions lol
— ☆ (@Lynnnnn_) February 28, 2024
Can we replace the ceo with an AI?
— Nathan (@Nathan46704064) February 28, 2024
While many are furious about the seeming direction the industry is taking, unfortunately, this might be not the last time we will hear about studio execs replacing humans with AI.
