ai translations

Geniune question what’s wrong with Ai translation? Most I see are smooth and understandable, its free so I don’t see a point in complaining, in fact im grateful someone took out of their time to edit and offer even these Ai translations

Because sometimes it feels like I’m reading something that was put through google translate seventeen times

Unfortunately there's no way to do that...
It's been an issue even back when today's AIs didn't exist and the aggregator websites like mangago have no interest on fixing it (because that means less views and less ads money)

Because we need to stop supporting AI??

The way I see it, as an older "pirate", scanlation is a means to make the manga you love better known. The ultimate aim of scanlation is to create such a fanbase that the rights will be acquired and a printing house will translate it and sell it in your country. Because the editor thinks that many fans = many potential buyers.
AI translations "do the job" but they don't create the passion. There are no translator notes to give you the context of the book, no explanation on the puns... It's something you consume then throw away.
I'm guessing this is less obvious for people who read web manhwa, because there's a lot less work (and passion) needed to scanlate them. This is factual, I'm not calling them lazy, they do a very good job usually. Cleaning and redrawing the low quality scan of a chapter printed on cheap recycled paper with ink spots everywhere is a f*cking pain and unless you Love the series there's NO WAY you'll inflict that upon yourself. Anyway.
AI translation is a way to make chapters quickly. It's the McDonald's of scanlating, sort of. But regular people usually aren't passionate about McDonalds, because it lacks flavor, and they wouldn't want to pay much for it (or to pay at all). It's the same for manhwa, manga, etc.
If you read something overflowing with the love the scanlator has for it, you'll be tempted to buy it, and keep a physical memory of the good time you had when you were reading it online for free. Whereas if the only thing left is a bland memory, there's no reason to spend money on something you've already finished long ago.
And sometimes the AI translation is so bad (inconsistent names, barely English syntax, I'm sure you've seen those before) that you'll just drop the series altogether and never go back to it - isn't that precisely against the original goal of scanlation? Even great series will lose their audience when such a thing happens. And then hopes of seeing it published in other countries vanish, and it's the scanlator's fault.
This is why AI translations are a bad thing. Better no chapter than a bland one.

Aside from the fact the translations alone can be inaccurate (seeing as a lot of words have more than one meaning) and aren't going to point out nuances or jokes that get lost in translation, AI - more specifically, generative AI - is the problem.

I can't deny that it's a useful tool... but it should only be used as a *tool* and not meant to do all the work for you. I've seen people who use it as an aid, and I see how helpful that can be; but the sad thing is that there are too many people expecting it to churn out school papers, or stories/books, "art", etc.
(Which, any "art" or "creative writing" made by AI is essentially stolen content, seeing as the material used for training is taken without the creators' consent.)

Regardless of any of that, however, is the enormously detrimental effect it has on our environment. It's simply not sustainable.

Not to mention that scanlations teams and independent translators put a lot of hard work into what they do. The translations provided are more likely to be accurate, the pages cleaned up to account for the addition or removal of text, and even decensored art. And they do it -- most often for free -- because it's something they enjoy. Their passion and dedication shouldn't be overlooked simply because AI can get the job done faster. Quality over quantity.

*edit: I say "most often for free" not because any profit is made, but because some teams have patreons or similar to help support/fund their work. Scanlators don't get paid for what they're doing

Because it’s ai and the translations are god awful