SlatorPod

“The face is the uncanny valley. The nuance and detail in the face and the way it moves is a very difficult thing to animate,” Jonathan Bronfman, CEO of MARZ explains on SlatorPod. Canada-based MARZ, which stands for Monsters Aliens Robots Zombies, was founded in 2018 to leverage AI and bring quantifiable metrics like time and cost to the business of visual effects (VFX).Bronfman recounts how their research for Vanity AI, a solution that creates effects such as de-aging, cosmetic, wig, and prosthetic fixes, led to them becoming an “expert at the face” and launching LipDub AI, a solution to solve the “mismatch between spoken word and visuals for viewers”.According to Bronfman, users can take an audio stem (the dialogue track), the original piece of footage, and push both through LipDub and have a lip-synced visual in 30 seconds. Bronfman also explains that their USP is that LipDub is Hollywood-grade and works on 4K and ProRes files.The two also discuss how actors feel about the emergence of lip-syncing visual effects and why Bronfman does not think an expansion into the creator market is on the cards for MARZ.Florian shares that as a life-long consumer of dubbed content he sees the massive potential in a solution that improves the viewer experience and makes it more natural.

Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, where amid ChatGPT's new enterprise launch, Florian tested ChatGPT's translation quality and came across mistranslations and awkward phrasing.Florian highlights the launch of the Slator Pro Guide: Subtitling and Captioning, providing an overview of its content and use cases. The discussion shifted to Meta's latest release SeamlessM4T which handles various translation-related tasks, including speech recognition, speech-to-speech translation, and more, across 100+ languages.Meanwhile, Appen shares price dropped considerably, so they aim to reposition themselves more toward generative AI but may face stiff competition from companies like Scale AI which recently announced a strategic partnership with OpenAI. The duo give their view on a Twitter post by a freelancer who was asked to provide discounts for typos by an LSP. When posed this question in Slator’s newsletter, the community's response was divided, with the majority opposing discounts for typos.

Georg Ell, CEO of Phrase, talks about merging Memsource into the Phrase brand, AI-driven growth of localization, upcoming pricing structure revamp, and the future of a hyper-personalized internet enabled by generative AI. He also advises on how LSPs should embrace AI and MT, and discusses funding in the language technology sector.

Longyue Wang, a Research Scientist at Tencent AI Lab, discusses the advancements in Chinese-to-English machine translation and the challenges in translating Chinese to non-English languages. He explores the impact of large language models (LLMs) on machine translation, including their superiority in document-level translation. Longyue also highlights various promising research directions for LLMs in machine translation, such as stylized MT, interactive MT, and translation memory-based MT. Additionally, he sheds light on Chinese researchers' efforts to build Chinese-centric MT engines and reduce reliance on English as a pivot language.

Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news, including NWN Carousel's contract providing AI-powered multilingual emergency services. They also discuss Meta's new language model Llama 2 and its limitations. Financial results of Straker Translations and ZOO Digital are examined. M&A activity includes ElaN Languages acquiring Lingua-World and LanguageWire acquiring Delingua. Funding news covers Phrase and Language I/O.

Florian Stègre, the Founder of Checksub, discusses their SaaS platform for subtitling and dubbing. Topics include animated subtitles, voice cloning, bootstrapping, AI research, team skill development, and future plans for user experience and AI dubbing.

Rocio Martinez, VP of Language Services at Jellyfish, joins SlatorPod to talk about the role of creative content localization at the digital marketing agency. Rocio explains that while the language services team at Jellyfish function as an LSP, their positioning in the market is broader, and they act as an internal solution provider that supports the various divisions within Jellyfish. She emphasizes the importance of connecting every part of the creative process, from creation to adaptation, and monitoring performance and optimization.Rocio provides an overview of J+ Creative, a proprietary set of tools that assist their teams in the production and localization process, including workflow management, deliveries, approvals, and version control.Rocio talks about the use of back translations in transcreation, primarily for creative content that requires significant adaptation from the source material. Rocio shares how finding the right copywriting talent and linguists can be a challenge, especially for rare languages or specific sectors.Rocio discusses the potential of large language models and generative AI tools for content generation and localization. She mentions that Jellyfish is actively testing and integrating AI tools, focusing on improving workflows, and considering prompt engineering to enhance content generation.Regarding the future, Jellyfish's initiatives revolve around AI, with specialist teams being trained to identify opportunities and implement them across marketing capabilities. Rocio also mentions the potential of Pencil, a generative AI tool for content and asset creation.

Graham Neubig, Associate Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, discusses his research on multilingual natural language processing and machine translation. He compares large language models with special-purpose machine translation models, highlighting GPT-3.5 Turbo's cost advantage. He predicts companies will use general-purpose LLMs and fine-tune them for specific tasks. The podcast also covers speech-to-speech machine translation system releases and Graham's startup, Inspired Cognition, focused on improving AI systems.

Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news over the past month, with ChatGPT traffic hitting its peak in May 2023 and large language models being released left, right, and center. The EU Commission (EC) unveiled the launch of a pilot program that will see the EC use its own machine translation tool to translate certain press releases. In mid-June, media localization company Dotsub announced it had ceased operations, due to its current liquidity situation. In more positive news, Microsoft's beloved Language Portal has made a comeback after the company announced that it would be shut down at the end of June. Over in M&A, XL8 has acquired AHT to diversify and grow its customer base to US government agencies. Also branching out is RWS as it bought legal and legislative content management system Propylon for a total purchase price of USD 47.3m.Meanwhile, in funding, Czech localization startup Localazy announced at the end of June that they raised EUR 1m. Voice generation platform, Eleven Labs, announced it had raised USD 19m in a Series A round. 

Deepdub Co-founder and CEO, Ofir Krakowski, joins SlatorPod to talk about the AI dubbing platform’s goal to make content more accessible through automation and human collaboration.Ofir’s experience in the Israeli Air Force's machine learning and innovation department led him to use his knowledge in deep learning and generative AI to co-found Deepdub with his brother, Nir.The CEO outlines the importance of human creativity in translation and how they have built a platform that incorporates both AI solutions and human curation. When it comes to AI dubbing, Deepdub prioritizes authentic and natural-sounding voices and incorporates domain-specific technologies to improve translation accuracy.Ofir recognizes the impact of generative AI, exemplified by ChatGPT, and emphasizes the importance of building a product rather than just a technology. The company actively engages with organizations such as the BFFS, a union for artists, to find ways to combine human talent with technology.While Deepdub serves enterprise customers in the entertainment industry, they also cater to professional audiovisual creators by making the dubbing process more readily accessible through their recently launched SaaS product Deepdub GO.Looking ahead, Deepdub plans further language expansion, with a focus on addressing the diverse linguistic landscape of countries like India.