If you’ve recently watched the English-dubbed version of one of the many popular anime on Amazon Prime Video, like “Banana Fish” and “No Game, No Life,” you may have noticed something strange. The voices were generic, inarticulate, and sometimes robotic, completely disconnected from the action on screen. Some lines also seemed a bit messed up. In a word: it was a disaster.
It turned out that the embarrassing English voices were AI-generated. To bring these characters to life, a group of actors did not sit in a room and record one after another; Instead, the sound lines were automatically strung together using essentially glorified text-to-speech software, with results that were predictably terrible.
were fans furiousAnd the fallout on social media quickly became so vocal that Amazon has now quietly removed AI dubs from several shows, including “Banana Fish,” However, AI-generated Spanish dubs for “Banana Fish” and “Vinland Saga” are still available, anime corner noted,
But the damage was done. Voice actor, who has been at the forefront of criticizing the encroachment of AI in the entertainment industries, set amazon on fire To move.
“Amazon’s choice to use AI to dub Banana Fish is a huge insult to us as artists. AI is threatening the livelihoods of artists in every language (yes, even Japanese artists who are incredibly vocal on the subject),” voice actor Damon Mills, known for his work in anime, wrote in a widely shared do,
The rollout appears to have taken place over the holiday weekend, without any official announcement from Amazon. In March, the company teased that it would begin testing a new “AI-aided” dubbing feature in a small selection of films in English and Latin American Spanish, but no mention of anime was made at the time.
The e-commerce giant has become obsessed with adding AI features to its streaming service. It started last year Showing AI-generated recaps to users has released another AI tool to recommend TV shows and movies to you based on how similar their plots and character arcs are to your favorite movies. It has also turned a blind eye to apparently AI-generated movie descriptions and posters polluting the platform.
The debacle comes shortly after popular anime streaming service Crunchyroll got embroiled in its own AI controversy after fans noticed that some subtitles were apparently AI-generated. In at least one case, the gift was a line that began “ChatGPT said.”
Especially for fans of “Banana Fish”, the insult caused by this latest AI work was serious. They’ve been waiting years for an English dub of the show, which originally ran in 2018. The show itself was a long-awaited adaptation of a classic manga that ended in 1994. In a way, it took another decade to create an English dub – all spoiled by poor AI.
More on AI: Man realizes he can feed poison pills to Facebook AI slop page that drives his followers crazy
