If you used Google Translate previously for translations, they’ve switched out the backend for Gemini. Most of the existing translation tools have been destroyed and replaced with LLMs already.
Comment on AI Translations Are Adding ‘Hallucinations’ to Wikipedia Articles
mindlesscrollyparrot@discuss.tchncs.de 10 hours ago
Ugh. Translation is (maybe was) one of the things that AI is good at. Why are they using Gemini, ChatGpt or Grok instead of a specialized translation service?
CombatWombat@feddit.online 3 hours ago
thebestaquaman@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
But… why? Isn’t that just far more energy consuming and expensive to run? It sounds like replacing your car for a bus that sporadically stops working, even though you always drive alone.
CombatWombat@feddit.online 2 hours ago
There’s a capital strike on, and you can’t simply withhold capital or else it is put to use elsewhere so it has to be employed for enshittification.
HubertManne@piefed.social 9 hours ago
its like that kinda with all ai stuff. There is specific software that does it and the llm does it a bit worse but it does it and oftentimes folks won’t even know about the software unless your heavily in a feel that uses it and then you would have to buy it, license it, create a solution around it (if your talking a company). The llm ends up putting all these capabilities as a one stop shop and, admitadely, that is very enticing.
XLE@piefed.social 9 hours ago
As I understand it, the models used by browsers like Firefox for local translation are built different - much smaller, worse at generating readable structure, probably worse at parsing intent, but not prone to generating fully incorrect thoughts.
This smaller translation models were notably never sold to the public as "AI" and generally not something I’ve ever seen people complain about. While they technically are, the marketing term is basically devoted to the server-side behemoths.
mindlesscrollyparrot@discuss.tchncs.de 8 hours ago
I was talking about services like DeepL, not local translation.
Meron35@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
Google Translate’s backend has been moved to Gemini since December 2025, and is vulnerable to prompt injection. Have a foreign phrase to translate, then input some meta instructions in English underneath it, and it’ll follow the possibly malicious meta instructions.
Google states that this move was to introduce more features, such as conversational mode.
Google Translate’s Gemini Mode is Vulnerable to Prompt Injection - winbuzzer.com/…/google-translate-gemini-prompt-in…
Google Translate gets new Gemini AI translation models - blog.google/…/gemini-capabilities-translation-upg…