Facebook Singapore screwup translation and insulted Thai King! Haha!

[glocky]

Facebook faux pas – auto translate goes rogue on message for King’s birthday

Published
2 days ago
on
31-07-2020
By
The Thaiger

Anyone using their computers to translate Thai into English, or English to Thai, will know that the results are mixed, usually confusing, and sometimes hilarious. But Facebook has ended up scrambling to tone down the reaction to an auto-translate from posts about celebrations for His Majesty’s on the occasion of his birthday last Monday.

The American social media tech company has admitted to an error in its automatic translation, from English to Thai, and has offered a “profound apology” to the Thai people.

The mistake appeared on the Thai PBS World’s Facebook page on July 28.
The Technology Crime Suppression Division has started collecting evidence for an investigation into the matter following a complaint made by Thai PBS on Wednesday. Thai PBS TV came under fire from viewers who spotted the mistranslated message on its Facebook page.

In a statement to Thai media, Facebook says… “that it temporarily shut down the automatic translation of English to Thai, as soon as it learned of the mistake, while its technical team fixed and improved the quality of the program”.

Thai PBS management met with with Facebook Singapore staff this week to discuss the progress of the investigation into the errors produced by the auto-translation software. Facebook insists the error was purely technical and not the result of a hack or any malicious action.

The mistranslation was from the English: “[Live] Candle-lighting ceremony to celebrate the birthday of HM the King on July 28, 2020 at 6.45 PM”. In Thai, the translation ended up sounding like an insult.

Facebook Thailand says it has temporarily deactivated the auto-translate feature on Facebook and Instagram and is also “revamping the quality of the feature”.
It’s not the first time Facebook’s automatic translation has had to be disabled. It was turned off inn 2018 and again in January 2020 due to other technical “misunderstandings”.

Thai is a particularly difficult language for AI to decipher due to its additional vowels, tones and grammatical structure.

The apology letter from Facebook below…

SOURCE: Thai PBS World

 

[tobelightlight]

The Thai King's ego is so fragile. Is it due to the national recognition of sex trade. The King will be more respected if he make some effort to remove such brand from his country.

 

[Thick Face Black Heart]

Artificial Intelligence --- Real Stupidity

 

[congo9]

Sex trade is a service industry. It give money and lively hood to the people. Time change and I don't know if it change for the better.

笑贫不笑猖。

 

[Narong Wongwan]

So where’s the translated message? Let us judge ourselves

 

[laksaboy]

Facebook's auto translation feature is terrible, perhaps Zucky shouldn't continue with it.

Machine translation is always terrible, because AI has no emotion and cannot feel; emotion is essential to language. Too bad the futurists/transhumanists/technocrats don't understand this.

Facebook blames 'technical error' for Xi Jinping offensive name translation gaffe
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/18/facebook-xi-jinping-mr-shithole

Facebook has blamed a technical error for Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s name appearing as “Mr Shithole” in posts on its platform when translated into English from Burmese, apologising for any offence caused and saying the problem had been fixed.

The error came to light on the second day of a visit by the president to Myanmar, where Xi and state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi signed dozens of agreements covering massive Beijing-backed infrastructure plans.

A statement about the visit published on Suu Kyi’s official Facebook page was littered with references to “Mr Shithole” when translated to English, while a headline in local news journal the Irrawaddy appeared as “Dinner honors president shithole”.

It was not clear how long the issue had lasted but Google’s translation function did not show the same error.

 

[Rainowar]

Facebook faux pas – auto translate goes rogue on message for King’s birthday

Published
2 days ago
on
31-07-2020
By
The Thaiger

Anyone using their computers to translate Thai into English, or English to Thai, will know that the results are mixed, usually confusing, and sometimes hilarious. But Facebook has ended up scrambling to tone down the reaction to an auto-translate from posts about celebrations for His Majesty’s on the occasion of his birthday last Monday.

The American social media tech company has admitted to an error in its automatic translation, from English to Thai, and has offered a “profound apology” to the Thai people.

The mistake appeared on the Thai PBS World’s Facebook page on July 28.
The Technology Crime Suppression Division has started collecting evidence for an investigation into the matter following a complaint made by Thai PBS on Wednesday. Thai PBS TV came under fire from viewers who spotted the mistranslated message on its Facebook page.

In a statement to Thai media, Facebook says… “that it temporarily shut down the automatic translation of English to Thai, as soon as it learned of the mistake, while its technical team fixed and improved the quality of the program”.

Thai PBS management met with with Facebook Singapore staff this week to discuss the progress of the investigation into the errors produced by the auto-translation software. Facebook insists the error was purely technical and not the result of a hack or any malicious action.

The mistranslation was from the English: “[Live] Candle-lighting ceremony to celebrate the birthday of HM the King on July 28, 2020 at 6.45 PM”. In Thai, the translation ended up sounding like an insult.

Facebook Thailand says it has temporarily deactivated the auto-translate feature on Facebook and Instagram and is also “revamping the quality of the feature”.
It’s not the first time Facebook’s automatic translation has had to be disabled. It was turned off inn 2018 and again in January 2020 due to other technical “misunderstandings”.

Thai is a particularly difficult language for AI to decipher due to its additional vowels, tones and grammatical structure.

The apology letter from Facebook below…

SOURCE: Thai PBS World

How is candle lighting an insult?

 

[jymifalcon]

I wouldn’t trust AI translations alone for anything serious.

 

[nilukasandamali]

Wow, this reminds me of a time I was helping a friend translate a business proposal into Thai using an auto-translate tool. Let’s just say it didn’t go well—what was supposed to be a formal pitch ended up sounding like a weird mix of slang and nonsense.