CrunchyrollA year after Crunchyroll CEO Rahul Purini announced artificial intelligence (AI) as an area of interest to expand its anime content, the company has now walked back its controversial plans – much to the relief of the fans.
As AI continues to infiltrate our lives, the debate over its role in creative work has only intensified. Movie marketing campaigns like Megalopolis and Thunderbolts, TV shows such as True Detective, and even YouTubers Vikkstar and JCS have all faced backlash for incorporating AI into their content.
The world of anime, known for its artistry and creativity, is not immune. Last month, OpenAI’s ChatGPT launched an AI image generator to create ‘art’ inspired by legendary Studio Ghibli animator Hayao Miyazaki.
Though it took the online world by storm, reactions were mixed, with some accusing the generators of exploitation. Months before this, Crunchyroll faced a similar response when the company revealed plans to incorporate AI into its workflow.
Crunchyroll backs down from AI plan
However, Purini has since gone back on his previous statements. In a new interview with Forbes, the Crunchyroll CEO said, “We are not considering AI in the creative process, including our voice actors.
Crunchyroll“We consider them to be creators because they are contributing to the story and plot with their voice.”
This is in contrast to his conversation with The Verge last year, where he said, “AI is definitely something that we think about at a lot of different workflows within the organization.
“Right now, one of the areas we are very focused on testing is our subtitling and closed captioning, where we go from speech to text and 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.
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“So that’s definitely an area where we are focused on.”
In his latest statements, Purini said the company is still looking at AI in back-end systems to “improve content discoverability, recommendations, and personalization” – but this is only for viewers’ experience and will not touch the anime itself.
This is welcome news for fans of the streaming service, which is best known for bringing beloved anime series like One Piece, Attack on Titan, and Demon Slayer to global audiences, offering both subbed and dubbed versions.
Discussing the issue of subtitles, one responded to the news, “If I pay for a service I expect to have proper subtitles. Having sh**ty auto subtitles is hugely frustrating.”
“Thank f**k for that, AI subtitling is awful… subs are also not literal translations,” said another. “If it just converted everything to the literal words used then shows would barely make sense.”
“Big win for the anime community,” added a third. “Crunchyroll has officially backed down from its controversial AI dubbing plan.”
For more on anime, check out the spoilers and release date for One Piece Chapter 1146, our roundup of the anime with the best stories, and the best anime movies to watch on Netflix.