Karnataka CM Slams Meta Over ‘Flawed’ Kannada Translations

"Faulty auto translation of Kannada content on Meta platforms" has drawn harsh criticism from Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. This comes after Meta's automatic translation engine mistranslated a Facebook condolence message from the chief minister's office and pronounced Siddaramaiah deceased.

Originally composed in Kannada to lament the passing of legendary actor B. Saroja Devi, the post was incorrectly translated into English, resulting in criticism from Siddaramaiah and a formal letter to Meta. The chief minister claimed on social media site X that inaccurate Kannada content auto-translation on Meta platforms is confusing users and misrepresenting the facts.

This is particularly risky when it comes to official correspondence. Siddaramaiah also emphasised the need for social media companies to behave properly. Additionally, he warned the public that the translations displayed are frequently incorrect. Such carelessness on the part of tech behemoths can undermine public confidence and comprehension.

Letter from CM’s Office to Meta India

K V Prabhakar, the CM's media advisor, publicly wrote to Meta after the public remark, requesting prompt remedial action. The state administration has expressed worry about the many inaccuracies and, in certain instances, egregious misleadingness of the auto-translation from Kannada to English, according to Prabhakar's letter to the Meta India team.

This presents a serious risk, particularly when official declarations, public communications, or crucial messages from the government and chief minister are mistranslated.

Meta Expanding its Support to Indian Languages

The occurrence of this incident coincides with Meta's efforts to increase the number of Indian languages supported on its platforms and services. The platform has added Hindi and Hindi-Romanised script to its list of accessible languages for its Meta AI helper.

Meta has also improved its ability to fact-check text in a number of Indian languages. In order to incorporate languages like Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Kashmiri, Bhojpuri, Oriya, and Nepali into its fact-checking programme, it has partnered with organisations and extended its current alliances.

Meta’s Trouble with AI Continues

The SuperIntelligence Lab at Meta, established to further the company's AI goals, is at a turning point. The business is now reevaluating the same tenet that brought it recognition for transparency and innovation acceleration.

Previously, it set itself apart from covert rivals like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google by openly disclosing its most potent AI models. Alexandr Wang, the former CEO of Scale AI, was recently named Chief AI Officer by the business, which also announced plans to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in large AI supercomputing clusters called Prometheus and Hyperion.

Sources familiar with the company's discussions claim that these actions have successfully eliminated internal opposition to limiting model access. Chinese AI labs have jumped at the chance to assert leadership in the open-source AI space as Meta re-examines its open strategy, potentially creating a long-lasting edge in the global AI infrastructure.