Max Hejtmánek, a former Czech-to-English translator at the Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 developer Warhorse Studios, claims they were fired from the studio and their role has been replaced with AI.
In a post to the game's Reddit page, it's reported Hejtmánek was called into a meeting and told his position in the studio will become "obsolete" next month. This is because the RPG team will reportedly use AI for "all translations" henceforth because it makes the company "more effective" and it "saves finances".
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Hejtmánek had voiced his concerns surrounding the use of AI within the studio previously, but he didn't think that would cost him his role. "I feel incredibly betrayed by the management of the company I've come to care about greatly these past almost 4 years, and am heartbroken I won't get to see my friends and colleagues at the office every day," he said.
It's suggested Hejtmánek was completely blindsided by the firing, because while Warhorse Studios doesn't have its next project officially confirmed, he still had work to do. He was "laid off near the end of a normal work day during which I was completely oblivious to what was coming".
During his time working on Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, Hejtmánek helped with the dialogue, quest logs, item names, and marketing material for the game and its expansions. His identity and publisher of the post in question were verified by Reddit mods, and Hejtmánek's LinkedIn page has been updated to state he no longer works at Warhose Studios.
[source reddit.com, via polygon.com]
Comments 27
Nice, what good employers, translation is probably low hanging fruit. Sucks to be a translator.
Why did you leave out that the translator.
Changed things that was not part of the actual narrative that needed to be translated.
And people still support AI 🤦.
"Human localisation reportedly replaced with AI"
And this is bad because?
Look, I've consuming media from Japan since forever but the last few years human localization has been the main problem, mainly because localizers keep inserting their political takes on a media that didn't have any political undertones and on an audience that didn't ask for any of it either.
I'd rather take the wrong translations from the 90's than the stuff we have today.
I wouldn't trust AI to translate yet. Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 was perfect in English. I think you would lose some quality going to an AI translated version.
Be ready for some really trash quality translations if this is what they do.
@CielloArc surprised you didn’t just flat out say translators are “woke.”
@CielloArc Atleast AI can't be controlled are you serious...
Even more stupid i want wrong translation losing context.... Man people are getting more dumb by the minute. I see how great AI translations are on Netflix its shamefull.
@CielloArc I mean its bad because of the reason in the article, it's directly replacing a human who has worked hard and has a difficult skill set to get to where they are.
AI is a direct threat to many peoples lifelong livelihoods, with fewer and fewer alternatives for them.
I don't know what you mean by inserting political takes but typically when I hear that I have a feeling a disagreement is incoming, so I'll stick to the "AI replacing jobs is bad because jobs are quite helpful in regards to survival and having a life that's not always terrible"
Good localization cannot be done with AI. It can probably help, a lot. But there's no way it can do 100% of it. I'm skeptical.
I think that AI translators for a story will miss a lot of things that a human translator would add. Subtle humor, wordplay, puns, jokes, made up fantasy terms, regional accents, etc.
The translation for Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined is impressive with all of its puns and accents. I don't think that AI can do as good of a job as a human for this, and the localization of DQ7R is one of its best parts to me.
Well yeah this will be the case for any developer or in fact anyone who uses a computer for work from here on in. If you hear of people being laid off and it’s computer based work you can bet they are being replaced by ai. Time to get a trade folks.
It sucks but from reading other parts of that post when it came out;
1) They have a lead translator who has been there 10 years (i.e. from the start) so it's not completely replacing the team.. for now.
2) If they're in the very early stages of whatever they're next making, they probably don't need two people for the job currently.
I imagine there's a fair bit of downsizing of teams after the release of a game as studios, especially of this size, can't keep an entire team on standby for their next game.
I certainly don't make any apologies for it but it sounds pretty rubbish and it seems so tough out there for people in the industry at the present time, even more so if even part of peoples' work can be "replaced" by AI.
I sincerely apologize for short sighted stupidity of us, Czechs. We were under communism for over 40 years and some of our people (management of Warhorse Studio) suffered huge brain damage. Intelligence of these people dropped under zero and still believe that "good idea" is better than common sense. I apologize these people are still in the lead of some businesses. We still didn't got rid of them. I'm sorry.
@UltimateOtaku91 call them for what they are at this point. Bootlickers.
@djlard not to defend communists. But do you really believe when I decision like this is made it’s due to communism? Kinda feels like corporate greed would be more a long the lines of a different ideology…
@SodaPop6548
Because political context does not directly translate to "woke", pun not intended.
@djlard Weird to blame typical capitalist greed on checks notes communism and brain damage.
Without a job, hopefully he won't go as hungry as Henry.
Removed - trolling/baiting
@AhmadSumadi Communists tried to screw minds of whole nation and still 1/3 of our nation is extremely short sighted. And lots of these "simple people" are in the lead. It is hard work to restore thinking, because we were teached "don't think, do as we say". So lots of czech people in the lead don't think in long terms. Only fast decisions.
We need Skynet to rid the world of executives who are pushing AI. I'm not suggesting they get killed. Just scare them enough so they retreat to their bunkers. This way the world can finally improve.
Removed - inappropriate language
Yeah its pretty damn tragic that KC2 will be the last great game for them. They have gone heavy into AI and well that's that. Will say its nice the subreddit what is pretty fanboyish with KC isn't defending or liking these moves from the dev.
@CielloArc Yeah like remember in the 90's the western dub took Sailor Moon and made two of the team who were lesbians and a couple and made them cousins. Anime is extremely political and "woke" dude and always has been.
@1970sGamer How can you defend something you don't understand, lol? Not even the people who create Gen Ai understand how it draws its conclusions.
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