Crunchyroll backtracks on its controversial A.I plan
Crunchyroll pivots from its AI strategy for subtitling, as CEO Rahul Purini announces the service will rely on human expertise instead, addressing past controversies.
The anime streaming service Crunchyroll has decided to change its controversial AI plan. CEO Rahul Purini shared in a recent interview that Crunchyroll will no longer use AI for subtitling and closed captioning and will rather use it for back-end systems to help with discoverability and personalisation.
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AI use will not touch creative process
Speaking to Forbes, Purini said, "We are not considering AI in the creative process, including our voice actors. We consider them to be creators because they are contributing to the story and plot with their voice." Forbes added that Crunchyroll stands with creators "striving to maintain authenticity in production" and will use AI and machine learning for its "back-end systems to improve content discoverability, recommendations, and personalisation, but only as ways to improve the customer experience and not touching on the content itself."
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Previous AI strategy faced fan criticism
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Purini had previously argued that the use of AI could speed up the work that went into subtitling and closed captioning, so that fans across the world could watch shows as close to the Japanese release as possible.
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This backtracking on their previous plans is likely due to the backlash from fans, who have been raising issues with the sudden drop in quality of the subtitles on Crunchyroll and the strong debates around copyright infringement and the broader fan backlash over the use of AI in the anime industry.
This shift also comes in the wake of controversy surrounding the recent AI-generated Studio Ghibli art. However, Amazon Studios has doubled down on its use of AI in its anime content with the recent launch of its AI dubbing pilot programme.
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