Ask Slashdot: Are YouTube's Subtitles 'Appallingly Bad'?

Source: Slashdot

Question

Long‑time Slashdot reader Anne Thwacks frequently uses YouTube’s subtitles “not to disturb others in the room, or because my hearing is not very good.” She reports a new problem:

“The subtitling is terrible!”

Almost every sentence has a huge error. Proper names are more often wrong than right. Non‑English place names are almost always mangled to barely recognizable forms, and no effort is made to use context to determine whether a place name is Russian, Arabic, French, Spanish, or Italian. Often complete garbage replaces common names.

If AI actually works (she has doubts), it should be possible to infer language contexts. For an event in Italy, one would expect many Italian names; for coverage of the Russia‑Ukraine war, Russian or Ukrainian place names should be plausible rather than “mindless gobbledygook.”

She asks: Does YouTube not know that there are places in the world that are not in America? (Although many American‑famous names are also regularly screwed up.)

The subtitles are described as “appallingly bad,” and the situation seems to be getting worse. Why isn’t the problem addressed with basic spell‑checking? (“I’m sure that the vast majority of foul‑ups could be fixed by the use of a dictionary.”)

Have any Slashdot readers seen similar problems?

A friend noted that YouTube’s subtitles even bungled this innocuous 1966 song:

ANNETTE FUNICELLO: “If your love is true love, you can tell by his touch.”
YOUTUBE SUBTITLE: “If your love is too lava, you can tell by his touch…”

Discussion

Share your own experiences and thoughts in the comments. Do you think YouTube’s subtitles are “appallingly bad”?