The next closed captions you read during a streaming Max show might come with help from AI, the streamer announced Tuesday.
Max parent Warner Bros. says it’s teaming up with Google to roll out “caption AI,” an “AI-powered captioning solution” that will automatically generate closed captions for some of its content, starting with unscripted shows.
Specifically, Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform will play a part in the “caption AI” workflow, while the captions themselves will be monitored by humans for “quality assurance,” Warners says.
The entertainment conglomerate estimates its “caption AI” tech will cut down on the time it takes to create closed captions by 80 percent while cutting costs in half compared to “manual captioning,” a boast that bodes ill for real-live people who compose closed captions for a living.
While there’s little doubt that AI-generated closed captions will be faster and cheaper to produce, will they be any good? After all, even the best LLMs are prone to hallucinations, which could lead to some, well…interesting closed captioning choices.
Naturally, Warner Bros. sounds confident, noting that the combination of Google Cloud’s Vertex AI technology plus “human oversight” will help “continuously refine and train the caption AI workflow” while “further reducing errors and striving to deliver consistently precise captions.”
In its press release, Warners notes that captioning movies, TV shows, and other streaming content has “traditionally” been a “labor-intensive and time-consuming process.”
Looking on the bright side, Warner’s use of Google’s Vortex AI platform could mean that more obscure or niche streaming shows that might otherwise miss out on closed captions might now get them.
More cynically, the new “caption AI” tech might simply be cheaper than paying humans to do the same job, a thorny issue that’s embroiled Hollywood in recent years.
Updated shortly after publication with a correction: While Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform will be used in the workflow within Warner Bros. Discovery’s “caption AI” technology, Google AI itself won’t be writing the captions. Our apologies for the error.
Author: Ben Patterson, Senior Writer, TechHive
Ben has been writing about technology and consumer electronics for more than 20 years. A PCWorld contributor since 2014, Ben joined TechHive in 2019, where he has covered everything from smart speakers and soundbars to smart lights and security cameras. Ben's articles have also appeared in PC Magazine, TIME, Wired, CNET, Men's Fitness, Mobile Magazine, and more. Ben holds a master's degree in English literature.