Erika2rsis

LLM/AI tools can massively decrease the cost of dubbing media into smaller languages, including the cost of creating audio descriptions for the visually impaired. I don’t know the extent to which these uses are actually being implemented at the moment, but yeah. It’s by all means possible, and in my eyes pretty cool. These uses would not replace real people, would not require unethical practices, but would still reduce the workload.

I’m kind of disappointed by the ways in which AI is being presented as a “terk er jerbs” thing in fields where it has no rightful place, the ways in which AI is presented as a “procedurally generated Netflix and chill with my robot girlfriend” hyperreal horrorshow, the ways in which AI is being used for scams. AI absolutely has its places in society, and helping with accessibility and localization is one of them.

Edit: Yes, and also writing closed captions, and arguably even using deepfakes to “dub” shows and movies into sign languages could be potential uses.

There’s also how chatbots can be used as language study buddies for those without the ability to talk to actual native speakers, although I haven’t had much success with this, personally.

Based granddad

Frankly, I’m not seeing any negative replies or downvotes.

I’m a US citizen myself, though I live in and am also a born citizen of Norway. So being in basically a quantum superposition between being and not being a US-American, you could imagine that I’d have a bit of a specific perspective about the country, that would draw me to using words like “Seppo”.

NZ and UK use it too. I think I first learned it from a Brit.

The word I use most often aside from American is Seppo, which is derogatory rhyming slang (sep + -o, from septic tank → Yank → Yankee)

Don’t forget Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008), that one’s a classic

Well, in the version of the story that I actually sent into the writing contest, I basically had to scrap the canals idea entirely because the maximum word count was too short for that kind of worldbuilding, so the canals unfortunately never got past the notes stage. All around I was pretty dissatisfied with how the final draft of the story came out, so I’ve been thinking of having another go at writing a full-length version of the story that goes in-depth about all the crazy worldbuilding ideas I had.

I once wrote a semi-satirical short story for a writing contest about Norway in the future, and I haaaate how much I had to trim that story down for word count, because I had a ton of ideas for it. I was going to write at length about how rising sea levels and more frequent flooding due to extreme weather had encouraged a shift to canal-centric reconstruction of Norwegian cities. These canals were known to locals as “moats”, because their primary purpose was not to facilitate transport, but rather to hinder it: traveling around cities now required either a fancy boat, or crossing one of a limited number of drawbridges, which frequently broke down for extended periods of time in poorer areas, and universally prioritized boat traffic over foot traffic.

The growing underclass of Norway still found some use for the canals, though, as they could fish for drift-litter in the contaminated waters, which they would use for crafts and gardening and such. Meanwhile in other areas, the canal water had been purified: the parks and plazas of Norway’s cities had all been transformed into public swimming pools, leaving would-be protestors with virtually no choice but to don their favorite bikinis and swim-trunks while holding up water-proof signs.