Japanese Publishers Invest in AI Manga Translation Startup (informedainews.com)

submitted 2 years ago by NineSwords@ani.social to c/manga@ani.social

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Japanese publishers, including Shueisha and Shogakukan, have invested $4.9 million in Mantra, a startup leveraging AI to accelerate manga translation.

I don't read many mangas, so I don't know how good or bad the translations are, but I thought the news was interesting at least.

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[-] wjs018@ani.social 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

For those that are interested in a different perspective on this, not of the publishers, but the translators, Anime Herald actually interviewed several professional translators about this topic. I made a post about it here with some discussion as well.

It's a good read and the translators are realistic about what is coming:

Zack Morrison (translator): I would say that, like it or not, AI is coming. That genie is not going back in the bottle. And it is improving. The days of Google Translate being a joke are gone. Who knows what AI translation will be like ten years from now? Twenty? Something people need to think about. Hating it is not going to make it go away.

However, at the same time, the companies making use of it are too optimistic about its current capabilities:

Kim Morrissy (translator): Corporations should definitely be more aware of the current limitations of MTL/AI and not see them as a shortcut to reducing labour costs. It’s not just purely a matter of ethics but making people aware that current applications will either see a big drop in quality or require more human labour than they were led to believe.

[-] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago

that genie is not going back to the bottle

IDK, but the anti-GMO movement managed to mostly put back a genie into its bottle. We just need to fight harder.

[-] Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

AI translation has gotten extremely good. It even replaces the text into English in nearly the same style/font!

I actually used my translator on my phone to read a Japanese manga when I was traveling. It needed another level of human revision, but I was able to get most of the story.

[-] x4740N@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago

If you where reading manga with a translator app why not go with a scanlation release instead

If you want to read manga in Japanese then I suggest learning Japanese

this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2024

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