Roblox Launches AI Text Chat Translation for 16 Languages
A custom multilingual translation model allows for seamless conversations between users who speak different languages.
In an effort to help its users communicate with others who may speak different languages, metaverse platform Roblox launched an AI chat translation feature that utilizes the platform’s custom multilingual translation model to allow the platform to quickly translate text in 16 languages into each user’s desired tongue.
These AI chat translations are now available in any Roblox experience that has enabled the platform’s “in-experience text chat service.” As users type messages in their own language, the model will quickly display the appropriate translations to other users, so long as both users (the sender and the receiver) are using one of the 16 languages the model currently supports. That is, the model can support translations between any combination of the 16 languages currently supported. Roblox said these translations are displayed “with latency of approximately 100 milliseconds.”
Once users receive a translated message, they can click an icon in the chat window to view the message in its original language.
In addition to supporting traditional text, the multilingual language model can also understand and translate slang terms.
On the Roblox blog, Daniel Sturman, Chief Technology Officer at Roblox, said, “To help the model understand modern slang, we asked human evaluators to translate popular and trending terms for each language, and included those translations in our training data. We will continue to repeat this process regularly to keep the system up to date on the latest slang.”
Going forward, Sturman said Roblox will continue working on its multilingual translation model and will also “explore” additional translation possibilities:
“We plan to continue to update our models with the latest translation examples from within our experiences as well as popular chat phrases and the latest slang phrases in every language we support. In addition, [the model’s] architecture will make it possible to train the model on new languages with relatively low effort, as sufficient training data becomes available for those languages. Further out, we’re exploring ways to automatically translate everything in multiple dimensions: text on images, textures, 3D models, etc.”
Roblox also uses AI translation elsewhere across its platform. Struman said, “the majority of our in-experience content is already automatically translated.”
You can read more about the creation and technical features of Roblox’s multilingual translation model on the Roblox blog.
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