The circulation of audiovisual and cinematographic works, regardless of their country of production, is based on the fact that they can be understood by the audiences for which they are intended. To this end, program distribution companies use two essential tools to facilitate program accessibility: subtitling, which consists of inserting the dialogue texts of the work in the language of the country, and dubbing, which consists of replacing the original voice with a voice speaking the desired language.
Subtitling has the advantage of being relatively inexpensive and technically easy to implement. However, it requires viewers to make an effort to read, which can disrupt their viewing experience. It also assumes that viewers can read.
REDBEE, an internal department of the BBC until 2005 and now part of the Ericsson group, has specialized in this field for nearly 20 years, capitalizing on the requirement in many countries to subtitle all programs, including those broadcast live. Numerous tools have been created and improved over time by the forerunners of artificial intelligence.
In the near future, this will enable us to take another step forward by also being able to modify or reproduce voices and allow programs to be dubbed without the involvement of actors.
Start-ups such as Eleven Labs, Resemble AI, and Respeecher are working on enabling actors to speak in any language with lip synchronization, targeting the dubbing market in cinema and audiovisual media.
In Europe, dubbing is a major industry that provides a livelihood for many actors, often those who specialize in this field.
This technological advance threatens the livelihoods of these actors, who could find themselves unemployed because of these new tools. In addition, the issue of rights to use these technologies, which rely on the voices of the actors themselves, must be discussed.
European regulations are already under discussion under pressure from actors' associations.
In Africa, this technological contribution could revolutionize the entire audiovisual sector: Africa is home to hundreds of languages, 50 of which are spoken by more than 1 million people.
Programs in local languages are rare, but when they do exist, they are a huge success for the channels that broadcast them because they meet viewers' expectations: MARODI TV has built its enormous success in Senegal on productions in Wolof, and for the past four years, CANAL+ has launched a new channel in a local language every year.
For a television channel or distributor, being able to subtitle or dub a program into several African languages at a low cost would give it unprecedented reach and significantly increase its audience by building loyalty among people who cannot read or who are more comfortable in their mother tongue than in the official languages.
As with any technological advance, this will raise new questions of a technical, political, and even philosophical nature: language is indeed a means of communication, but it is also a factor in cultural identity and social cohesion.
Will this new opportunity help combat illiteracy? Will it promote social cohesion or, on the contrary, reinforce everyone's sense of belonging to their own community? …
The near future will tell, as technology is advancing at a rapid pace.