Here's a academic review on AL transtations NOTING jules Verne

[quentin skrabec]

This article notes a Jules Verne AL generated 'translation" and how to spot them QUENT AI is flooding the online book market with poor translations – here’s how to spot them

[James D. Keeline]

I agree in the merits of skilled translators.  But when the author writes:

Like many translators, I’m wary of the impact of AI on translation quality, not least because AI is not ideologically neutral. This means AI translation is more likely to reproduce outdated racial stereotypes (rife in colonial-era literature, alas) rather than handle them with sensitivity.

 it implies that an AI translation system cannot be neutral or sensitive to issues for modern readers but a human translator is by default.

It is very hard for a human to be strictly neutral.  Modern academics may tend to "presentism" as much as anyone else.

Here in the Verne community we have looked at the quality of translations for more than 20 years.  But what does "quality" mean?  Has the translator taken pains to convey the author's writing, including any identifiable intent and even humor, in ways that hasty Nineteenth Century translators did not?

Opportunistic publishing has been around for decades.  Practically the same day that a work is released on Gutenberg, some opportunistic publisher will grab the text and make it availabe as a slapdash print-on-demand or eBook.  Even if they make just $1 on each copy sold, it is like free money because there is little work involved.

But it is important to avoid the reaction that assumes all PoD books are automatically bad.  An artist can create beautiful sculptures with a chainsaw.  In the same way, PoD publishing and even well-managed AI can create good results.

AI is attractive to the indolent or opportunistic personalities.

There are similar situations for human-read audio books on LibriVox.org where volunteers read public domain books.  The quality of the reading varies according to the reader and the source material (especially in the form of complteness and translation quality).  But LibriVox actively avoids any sort of rating system where people can know, before they download, what others think of the translation.  I am told that most of the LibriVox recordings are also available on Archive.org and ratings are possible there.

But we don't have much evaluation of the plethora of new editions of Verne or other books.  Sometimes there is a tendency to review just the works you like.  But perhaps it will be necessary to have at least neutral or dismissive reviews of books that appear to be hastily produced or AI with poor guidance and editorial review.

James D. Keeline

On Fri, Aug 7, 2026 at 12:42 PM quentin skrabec <qrsk...@gmail.com> wrote:

This article notes a Jules Verne AL generated 'translation" and how to spot them QUENT AI is flooding the online book market with poor translations – here’s how to spot them

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[William Butcher]

Agreed. But quality also means the literary quality of the translated text: its coherence, rhythm, assonance,  sensitivity, use of idioms, vividness, etc. Baudelaire's translation of Poe got low marks for accuracy but very high marks as a literary work in its own right.

Best

bill

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From: jules-ve...@googlegroups.com <jules-ve...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of James D. Keeline <ja...@keeline.com>
Sent: Saturday, August 8, 2026 4:45 AM
To: jules-ve...@googlegroups.com <jules-ve...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [JVF] Here's a academic review on AL transtations NOTING jules Verne

 

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[Don Sample]

On Aug 7, 2026, at 4:45 PM, James D. Keeline <ja...@keeline.com> wrote:

I agree in the merits of skilled translators.  But when the author writes:

Like many translators, I’m wary of the impact of AI on translation quality, not least because AI is not ideologically neutral. This means AI translation is more likely to reproduce outdated racial stereotypes (rife in colonial-era literature, alas) rather than handle them with sensitivity.

 it implies that an AI translation system cannot be neutral or sensitive to issues for modern readers but a human translator is by default.

It is very hard for a human to be strictly neutral.  Modern academics may tend to "presentism" as much as anyone else.

The ideologically neutral translation would preserve the outdated racial stereotypes, rather than handle them with sensitivity. Changing the original to conform to modern sensibilities is to impose a new ideological framework on the author’s original work.

When I did my version of The Children of Captain Grant I did chose to omit some adjectives in the descriptions of non-European people, and was sorely tempted to completely rewrite the sections describing Australian Aborigines, but I restricted myself to just adding a bunch of notes about how wrong Verne was about them.