Crunchyroll is looking to crunch the numbers by saving every penny, it seems. In the future, the subtitles of your favorite anime might just be AI generated if the company's CEO has anything to say about it.
Crunchyroll is the biggest anime streaming service on the internet. It has become the place fans go to when they want to watch their favorite show. While Netflix and Disney+ have also ventured into the anime streaming sector, Crunchyroll still reigns supreme.
While Crunchyroll is the best anime website out there to watch series legally, it seems that corporate greed has taken hold even here, with CEO Rahul Purini stating that AI is something they're actively looking into to make subtitles for shows.
Crunchyroll CEO Sees AI Subtitles As Opportunity
Purini talked to The Verge discussing the merger between Funimation and Crunchyroll. He also touched upon the subject of AI generated subtitles and how this would improve Crunchyroll as a whole and broaden the reach of the company in the future.
A.I. is definitely something we think about at a lot of different workflows in the organization [...] 'How do we improve and optimize our processes where we can get the subtitles done in various languages across the world faster so that we can launch as close to the Japanese release as possible?'
Purini believes that with faster subtitles it will stop the piracy of anime, since often anime piracy sites are faster at uploading content alongside the Japanese release. With fans wanting more content and quicker, using AI for subtitles would quicken the process of getting shows and series on Crunchyroll.
Many fans are worried about the future of their favorite shows and the quality of the subtitles, with many believing that AI can never get on the same level as humans. Especially when it comes to specific nuances in the text, AI might not be able to pick those up, which would then result in mistranslations and misinterpretations.
Overall, it will be interesting to see how Crunchyroll will grow, but it does feel like AI is an inevitable addition. Crunchyroll is currently testing AI subtitles behind closed doors trying to perfect closed captioning going from text to speech.