"Patreon money being spent on AI subscriptions to make untrustworthy translations, that are promoted as if they're worth reading or valid sources of historical info. It's worthless and destructive: these translations are like looking at history through a clownhouse mirror."
"There's no world in which they could ever get hundreds of thousands of pages translated by hand. Error-prone searchability is more useful to more people than none at all."
"Famitsu alone is over 1,900 issues, each with [a hundred-plus] pages. That's one magazine from one country. [Human translation] would be ideal, but it's impossible."
Gaming Alexandria, a video game preservation project, encountered significant controversy over its use of AI-powered machine translations for historical gaming materials. Critics, including researcher Nichols, condemned spending Patreon funds on AI subscriptions to produce unreliable translations presented as valid historical sources, comparing them to distorted mirrors of history. Concerns centered on the project's irresponsibility in leveraging privileged access to novel information while accepting substandard translations. However, supporters argued that machine translation, including AI-assisted tools, represents a practical necessity given the massive scope—Famitsu magazine alone contains over 1,900 issues with hundreds of pages each. Proponents noted that AI-powered OCR and translation tools are already ubiquitous, making error-prone searchability more valuable than no accessibility at all.
#ai-translation-controversy #video-game-preservation #machine-translation-ethics #community-backlash #historical-documentation
Read at Ars Technica
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