WHAT is usually hilarious with bot artificial intelligence (AI) translation has turned disastrous for Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM) when “junjung kasih” in its Facebook (FB) message on the installation of Sultan Ibrahim as the 17th King of Malaysia on Saturday (July 20) was erroneously translated as “condolences”.
The blunder went viral with brickbats of sorts – ranging from the deteriorating state of the English language to heads shall roll to even a call for Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil “to h*ng himself” – hurled at the government-owned public broadcasting station.
This was till the public relations unit of the Malaysian Broadcasting Department clarified that what appeared on RTM’s official Facebook site was an automatic translation by FB’s own system.
“If users activated automatic translation, the English translation will appear. The English translation by FB’s system was incorrect,” the department pointed out in a statement carried by Bernama.
“RTM did not upload any condolence message content in conjunction with the installation ceremony of the 17th Yang di-Pertuan Agong (King).”
In view of the severity of the bot-triggered blunder, RTM had lodged a police report with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) having contacted FB’s parent company Meta Platforms Inc regarding the erroneous translation by its system.
“META also confirmed that they had rectified the issue,” the statement added.
Fahmi who stepped in to defend RTM further expressed regret over certain quarters accusing RTM of making inappropriate posts in English.
“Some people accuse RTM of making inappropriate Facebook posts in English. In fact, the original post was in BM (Bahasa Malaysia). Then slander spreads even to the point where some ask me to ‘h*ng himself’,” the Pantai MP lamented in his FM post. “Don’t do this. Be fair to RTM. Don’t slander.”
The valuable lesson to learn from this episode if for both the public and private sectors to accept that bot-powered translation engines – Google Translate included – have their limitation given certain words, phrases or sentences cannot be literally translated.
While auto translation tools are gradually improving, they may not always provide high-quality, accurate translations, especially for more complex or nuanced content. This could lead to costly confusion or misinterpretation which can ruin reputation or have vast financial consequences. – July 22, 2024
