3w ago

'Spitting in the face of your international audience': The Alters cops to using generative AI for background text and translations, despite not disclosing such on Steam

www.pcgamer.com

In a statement, 11-Bit Studios confirms that an instance of AI-generated text appears in The Alters due to an "internal oversight"

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/11-bit-studios-acknowledges-the-use-of-ai-generated-text-in-the-alters

41 comments

Just so we're clear, the first pass of localization of every game you've played in the past decade has been machine-generated.
Which is not to say the final product was, people would then go over the whole text database and change it as needed, but it's been frequent practice for a while for things like subtitles and translations to start from a machine generated first draft, not just in videogames but in media in general. People are turning around 24h localization for TV in some places, it's pretty nuts.
Machine generated voices are also very standard as placeholders. I'm... kinda surprised nobody has slipped up on that post-AI panic, although I guess historically nobody noticed when you didn't clean up a machine-translated subtitle, but people got good at ensuring all your VO lines got VOd because you definitely notice those.
As with a lot of the rest of the AI panic, I'm confused about the boundaries here. I mean, Google Translate has used machine learning for a long time, as have most machine translation engines. The robot voices that were used as placeholders up until a few years ago would probably be fine if one slipped up, but newer games often use very natural-sounding placeholders, so if one of those slips I imagine it'd be a bit of drama.
I guess I don't know what "AI generated" means anymore.
I haven't bumped into the offending text in the game (yet), but I'm playing it in English, so I guess I wouldn't have anyway? Neither the article nor the disclosure are very clear.
That said, the game is pretty good, if anybody cares.
- Machine generated voices are also very standard as placeholders. I'm... kinda surprised nobody has slipped up on that post-AI panic
  Diablo 4 had this recently, where an obviously Microsoft Sam like robot voice made it through, and a few people lost their minds.
  
  I thought MS Sam was an accessibility feature, that you can enable and disable text-to-speech. Did they use that for NPCs voice-overs?
- historically nobody noticed when you didn’t clean up a machine-translated subtitle
  I don’t know about that, it’s super noticeable when that happens, it’s just that it mostly affects languages other than English, so it did not get noticed by Western media unless there is a review bombing campaign after a particularly atrocious localization
  
  As a non-native English speaker, let me tell you, terrible localization was very much a thing that happened well before machine translation, so that by itself (and more subtle typos or one-off errors) was definitely not enough to infer that someone had forgotten to fix a machine-translated line once.
  You can definitely tell when something has been machine-translated and not fixed, but the real challenge is lack of context. This leads to nonsensical localization even today, whether it's human or automated, especially in crowdsourced localizations, which are frequent in open source software. I contribute to some on occassion and maaaan, do I wish well intentioned people in that space would stop contributing to projects they don't use/lines they haven't seen in situ.
- but I’m playing it in English, so I guess I wouldn’t have anyway?
  The text in the screenshot in the reddit post they link is in English
  
  I hadn't clicked through to the Reddit thing (for obvious reasons). The example in the article proper is in a Portuguese subtitle, but now that you pointed me at it and I did check the Reddit thread... well, that text is not legible in game unless you really try, so yeah, I hadn't read it. I'm guessing that's the only English instance?

Shameful, but this is the state of modern game developers. Scrap every possible avenue of paying your workers a living wage while surrendering to all latest failure tech fads.
- Neither of those things happened here.
  The examples people found include a monitor showing random technical text that someone asked a LLM to write (presumably the writer who goofed is getting paid) and some localized subtitles that were left with a machine localization (the rest of the localization was contracted out).
  Even assuming a bunch of other stuff in the game was AI generated and just went undetected, which is likely, if it's all iterations on what people noticed it definitely doesn't fit your description.

I remember watching a film online that had AI generated subtitles. it was shit because the subtitles said vaguely the same thing but were still very different to what was actually said. and both the film and the subtitles were in English. can't imagine how bad AI translations will be. also what's wrong with getting a translator, who can understand context?

Why would they use LLMs for translation over dedicated translator (apps like Google translate)? Is this common now?
- I work with multiple languages and I haven't heard of LLMs being used instead of Deeply/Google translate.
  Don't really see the reason to switch to LLMs.
- In my experience LLM get vastly better results that traditional translation software.
  Also google translate is not traditionally suited for long coherent text.
  And, anyway google translate if it's not already using llm for translation will soon. Results are just better. It's one of the tasks that language models are actually good for.
  
  I don't have an issue, it was just a question.
  I don't ever translate anything but a few words myself.
  My assumption was that a dedicated tool would have done a better job, but you have good points about tone and coherence of long text (and possibly even across many promps of the translation).

What an insanely non-issue to clutch one's pearls at... Between Luddites and Trumpites, this is the worst timeline...
- Really appropriate example, actually.
  As the Industrial Revolution began, workers naturally worried about being displaced by increasingly efficient machines. But the Luddites themselves “were totally fine with machines,” says Kevin Binfield, editor of the 2004 collection Writings of the Luddites. They confined their attacks to manufacturers who used machines in what they called “a fraudulent and deceitful manner” to get around standard labor practices. “They just wanted machines that made high-quality goods,” says Binfield, “and they wanted these machines to be run by workers who had gone through an apprenticeship and got paid decent wages. Those were their only concerns.”
  
  Me and the boys being worried for our jobs as automation stretches onwards and just wanting some level of guarantee that good paying jobs will still be available 😭
  
  For the record, the word as a general noun is widely recognized to mean what everybody thinks it means:
  Luddite noun Ludd·ite ˈlə-ˌdīt : one of a group of early 19th century English workmen destroying laborsaving machinery as a protest broadly : one who is opposed to especially technological change
  One of the weirder annoyances of the AI moral panic is how often you see this spiral of pedantry about the historical luddites whenever someone brings up the word as a pejorative.
  I mean, fair rhetorical play, I suppose, in that it creates a very good incentive to not bring it up at all. If the goal was to avoid being called a luddite as an insult or as shorthand for dismissing AI criticism as outright technophobia I suppose that is mission accomplished, disingenuous as it is.
- Ah, the always welcome "and so what?" comment, with a side of name calling for some extra spice.
  
  Don’t forget the obligatory smug response from somebody who feels they have moral superiority.
- Like I’m not the biggest fan of gen ai but a generic computer screen feels like a good use case for filler text.
- Showing that even a small non-issue use of AI will be detected is a pretty strong incentive for other games to disclose that willingly. Otherwise, why would they admit to it if no one can tell? Morals??? 😂😂😂
  
  Why should they "admit" to it when NeoLuddites with pitchforks and no ability to reason lurk around every corner?
- It wouldn't be lemmy if we weren't always in a moral size measuring contest.
- Thank you. At least some people on this abomination of an antisocial media still seem to use their brain.
- Gamers who get mad having to wait for company logos to show while games boot: They have to disclose every piece of software they use to make every game! I want my games 100% hand crafted and bespoke. I want to sense the life people spent meticulously crafting mudsplat_texture_1 - mudsplat_texture_500. Also no crunch (and no bugs, obviously)
  
  Nice strawman Dorothy

41 comments