Amazon on Thursday announced the launch of Kindle Translate, an artificial intelligence translation service designed for authors who use Kindle Direct Publishing to expand their reach. The service initially translates text between English and Spanish and from German to English, as it is still in beta. More languages will be supported over time.
The retail giant noted that less than 5% of titles on Amazon are available in more than one language, suggesting there is a big opportunity for AI translations.
Of course, the AI isn’t perfect, which means it could introduce errors into the text. To address this, Amazon allows authors to preview their translations before publishing them if they wish. If the author isn’t just using the service to speed up the translation of their work into another language they speak, this ability to control the AI’s work won’t do them much good. they would still need a human translator to check the AI’s output if they wanted to ensure the best accuracy.
(Amazon claims that its AI translations are “automatically evaluated for accuracy” before publication, but it doesn’t specify what steps are involved in that part of the process.)
The company says authors can manage and access their translations from the Kindle Direct Publishing portal, where they can choose languages, set prices and publish their translated work.
Readers, meanwhile, will see AI-translated works clearly marked as “Kindle Translate” titles and will be able to preview translation samples.
Kindle Translate competes with many other Translate with artificial intelligence services and tools on the market, whose pricing can vary and which offers wider support more languages. There are also open source tools. Some people in the industry criticize the use of AI in this way, saying that human translators are better at capturing the nuances — especially in fiction and other literary works. But AI is improving on this front and will likely continue to improve over time.
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Currently, the Kindle translation service is offered for free, according to Amazon communicationwhich quotes an early tester praising this aspect of the service, saying indie authors have struggled to find an “affordable and reliable solution.”
Amazon says the translations are eligible for subscription to other programs, such as KDP Select, and are included in the Kindle Unlimited subscription service.
