Amazon’s AI ‘Banana Fish’ Dubs Are Hilariously, Inexcusably Bad
Amazon’s AI ‘Banana Fish’ Dubs Are Hilariously, Inexcusably Bad
They are also AI dubbing show that already have a dub: https://xcancel.com/Pikagreg/status/1994654475089555599
I recently watched Last Samurai Standing from Netflix I think, which I actually thought was pretty good, but I noticed the English dub seemed to use some kind of AI to make the character mouth movements match the English dub words.
At first it wasnt too noticeable, and I thought they had maybe filmed in English. But there was a lot of things that seemed like maybe they had some native Japanese people on the team because English speakers would have either not known about it or would feel culturally compelled to change it. Then at some point I noticed it, the mouths moving unnaturally. I think it was a close up of someone talking, but once I noticed it, it was pretty distracting.
I honestly like the idea though. It might actually be a legitimate use case for "AI," as some people are distracted when character mouth movements don't match the words they say, but in this case I think it is still too early for deployment. It was done well enough to pass on people that can't see very well, but it was pretty distracting for me once I noticed it. It would be too much work to try and film all the actors saying languages they likely don't understand to try and composite. Is it mandatory? No, but it would be nice for people that get distracted by mismatched audio.
The argument of "just watch subs" falls flat when they're using AI to do soulless subtitling too.
Jesus fuck I hate AI so much. The other day Google AI literally gaslit me. I remembered a joke I had heard in a movie but couldn't remember the movie title. Google used to be really good at this kinda thing so I Googled it. The results were wrong and the AI was like "It's Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates".
Now, I've never seen Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates so I knew that couldn't be the movie so I told it "no that's not it". And what did the AI do? Did it say "oh, well then maybe it's this?" Did it say it didn't know? No, it doubled down insisting it MUST be Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates.
I COMMANDED it to stop suggesting it was Mike and Dave because it was definitely not it and it STILL kept saying that was the movie.
So I asked ChatGPT. Yeah, I know it's another AI but I was at my wits end here and Google was undeniably wrong. Anyway, ChatGPT figured it out instantly.
So I went back to Google and was like, "ChatGPT figured it out. It was 'The Art of Racing in the Rain' you stupid AI."
Rather than admit it was wrong, Google then gaslit me saying I was misremembering the movie and that it was Mike and Dave Nerd Wedding Dates.
I was furious so I told Google to prove it to me. Then it got all vague like, "well, I searched my database and web records." I asked for the specific records. It gives me a link to the movie script for Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates on some website. I do a simple word search and do not find the joke anywhere in the script. Nothing even remotely close.
When I point this out to Google it was like" well, maybe it was adlibbed or not in that early version if the script, but it's in discussions of the movie so I know I'm right."
"Show me these discussions"
"Sorry, there are no discussions"
"So you hallucinated the whole thing and completely made it up?"
"Yes"
Fuck you, Google.
At any point in time did you ever consider doing a non-AI search? The sheer fact you say you hate AI… yet you continue to use it is a problem in and of itself.
The results were wrong
Yes... maybe I should have emphasized that the SEARCH results were wrong. And have you used Google lately? It forces the AI on you. You can't turn that shit off. At least not easily.
But yeah, apparently if I had asked Bing it seems that it would have gotten it. Who would've thought that Bing would now be better than Google? But even Bing forces Copilot on you.
So please, oh master of internet searching, what search engine doesn't force AI on you? I guess I could pretend it's 1999 and use Lycos...
So I went back to Google and was like, “ChatGPT figured it out. It was ‘The Art of Racing in the Rain’ you stupid AI.”
lmao
Bro tried to performance shame a chat bot
You know 15 years ago it was common pastime to see how quickly we could trick Cleverbot into admitting it was a chat bot and not actually intelligent. Now we have chat bots competing with us to prove that we must not be intelligent.
And they're winning.
The trick yo beating the Turing test isn't making smarter computers, it was making computers that make people stupider.
On one hand: It's impossible to dub every single anime at a reasonable time.
On the other: I totally see the big companies refusing to hire real actors for dubbing because 'muh profits'
I mean if you think about it, Japan solved that problem given that every series is already dubbed in one language.
It's impossible to dub every single anime at a reasonable time.
I mean, not really. For all already existing ones, maybe, but for new ones? No reason for it to be impossible. The Japanese dub doesn't appear out of thin air. The Western streaming services companies just aren't willing to pay up.
Point 2 is true, Point 1 is simply not unless by reasonable time you mean immediately into every language.
There are ~25K anime in MyAnimeList. If we assume that there are 250K episodes with a total average length of 25 minutes, each, we are talking about dubbing 6.25 million minutes overall.
Let's say 80% of them is not yet dubbed, that'll be 5M minutes. Netflix delayed KaoruHana for at least two months to dub 8 episodes * 25 minutes, so they likely took three months to complete 200 minutes of footage i.e. a rate of 0.3 anime minutes/VA minute. Let's say there are 100 organizations with three teams of dubbers each, so the rate can be expanded to 90 anime minutes/VA minute overall.
Clearing the backlog will require 55K minutes. That's 925 hours/115 business days, or almost a year. I guess it is possible if we wait this long. And this calculation ignores time to select the right VA for the job, paying the amount the VAs request to accept the job, plus a whole lot of other factors I failed to mention or I don't even know exist.
And this is for just one language (English), and I'm still waiting for the Italian dub of JoJo Part 5.
So if I understand correctly, they fire professional voice actors and replace them with grotesque AI voice bots. I hope there will be more fandubbing in the future
Oh my god I fucking love these dubs.
It's so fucking bad.
I need more garbage like this in my life
I can't seem to watch the example ATM, but I seem to be allergic to subs, so there are MANY shows that I would love to have even trash-quality dubs.
You may be underestimating how bad these AI dubs are.
The Italian Brainrot memes sound better than those.
Still better than a language I don't understand and text over the beautiful animation.
Honestly.... given the reaction seen here, I was expecting FAR worse. Assuming there is approximately zero human input/effort, I actually find it remarkable for a push-button auto-dubbing solution. In fact, if I had such a auto-dubbing "button", I would most surely make heavy use of it, and maybe even pay extra for it as a service... but that might just be me.
Voice acting is so incredibly disrespected, its not a surprise at all they'd try to replace it with this garbage.