The specter of artificial intelligence (AI) looms large over the video game industry. While artists have begun to feel the chill of unemployment as AI-generated images become more advanced, a new crowd has begun to cry foul over artificial incursion onto their turf.
Video game translators and localizers, those tasked with converting unintelligible cultural differences into things understandable to a Western audience, are beginning to feel the squeeze as their jobs get outsourced to the machines.
American localizers for manga series The Ancient Magus’ Bride became incensed when the manga’s Japanese publisher announced it planned to use a combination of AI and human editors to create the English edition of the series.
Some translators and localizers tried to argue this was an example of “corporate greed” and that it demonstrated “disrespect for the substance of the original text.” Others claimed the use of AI would result in a “mediocre product.”
While, for the moment, human-AI teaming appears to be limited to this particular manga, it’s not difficult to imagine the process becoming more common with multiple forms of media. Anime, gaming, and manga have thus far been reliant on humans to translate cultural nuance. The shift to a hybrid model of translation would be a game-changer for the industry.
But for all the complaining on the part of these geeky interlocutors, their complaints about how AI will make an inferior product or disrespect the text don’t paint a full picture of the issue at hand.
While translation from a foreign
