So being able to generate sign language videos for people who cannot hear is not a legitimate use case for AI videos? Or is your hate boner for AI just blinding you from useful applications?
So being able to generate sign language videos for people who cannot hear is not a legitimate use case for AI videos? Or is your hate boner for AI just blinding you from useful applications?
Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes things worse.
(Your comment would be just fine without the last sentence)
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Fair enough, I will keep that in mind.
Great point. Really, the main problem with subtitles is that the creator can understand them without having to know another language, and therefore can spot check them. That makes it much more difficult to insert Black Mirror-style Contextually Relevant Advertisements.
Is there a reason that's superior to subtitles, which are already fairly easy to generate?
sign languages are completely different languages from spoken languages, with their own grammar etc.
subtitles can work but it's basically a second language. perhaps comparable to many countries where people speak a dialect that's very different from the "standard" written language.
this is why you sometimes have sign language interpreters at events, rather than just captions.
there's not really a widely accepted written form of sign language.
> subtitles can work but it's basically a second language
That argument applies just as equally to sign language - most countries have their own idiosyncratic sign language. (ASL, LSE, etc.). Any televised event that has interpreters will be using the national language version.
The closest thing you're thinking of is IS - International Sign but its much more limited in terms of expression and not every deaf person knows it.
> there's not really a widely accepted written form of sign language.
Because it makes no sense to have it unless there was a regional deaf community that was fluent in sign language and also simultaneously illiterate.
https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/6t7k1w/h...
>this is why you sometimes have sign language interpreters at events, rather than just captions.
No, the reason is because a) it's in real time, and b) there's no screen to put the subtitles on. If it was possible to simply display subtitles on people's vision, that would be much more preferable, because writing is a form of communication more people are familiar with than sign language. For example, someone might not be deaf, but might still not be able to hear the audio, so a sign language interpreter would not help them at all, while closed captions would.
if you're maximizing accessibility you'd have both. often in broadcasts with closed captioning, there will also be a video of the sign language interpreter.
Sometimes the captions miss things or are really terribly written.
Why can’t sign language be written? Why does it need to be on video?
The real question is... what is the advantage of written sign language versus... normal writing? I think a lot of people are confused and think that there is only one universal form of sign language used worldwide [1].
Second problem is that sign language is heavily influenced with corresponding facial expressions, body language, the motion of the hands, even how emphatic the motions are. Trying to approximate what is effectively a SPATIAL language into written glyphs feels like a complete waste of time.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sign_languages
> what is the advantage of written sign language versus... normal writing
If your native language is French, why might you prefer things to be written in French rather than, say, Swahili?
I feel like we might be talking past each other but it is funny that you chose French and Swahili. [1]
The point is that "SIGN LANGUAGE" is idiomatic to the native speaker's tongue. So if you're going to take the time to create a specialized written form of it, you can just write using the native language which can be read by BOTH the Deaf and non-Deaf community.
Deaf people are not magically illiterate.
Creating a written sign language serves no value since it is just a crappier version of the normal written equivalent.
So there's not a lot of value in creating a written form of say the French Sign Language because you can just use French.
Swahili regions have multiple types of sign language including Kenyan Sign Language.
[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Sign_Language
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenyan_Sign_Language
> The point is that "SIGN LANGUAGE" is idiomatic to the native speaker's tongue.
No, this is not true. French and French Sign Language are totally unrelated languages. Sign languages generally have little to do with the spoken language of the country they’re used in, that’s why for example American Sign Language and British sign language are completely different and not mutually intelligible despite the UK and the US speaking the same language (with only slight differences in accent and vocabulary).
There isn't a standard written form of any major sign languages
Yes, but there’s no fundamental reason why there couldn’t be one. It’s not a good reason to accept all the downsides of AI.
AI is irrelevant to the reason why there isn't a written version of every single national dialect of sign language. The reason it doesn't exist is because it would serve no purpose (source: many deaf friends). Deaf communities learn the country's writing system just like everyone else.
The closest thing out there is SignWriting [1] which has about as much traction in the real world as esperanto.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SignWriting
ASL would be the target, but also the hand motions might not be universal to convey.
LOL. Yeah, that's way better than closed captions, even auto-generated ones.
THANK YOU. READING SOME OF THE COMMENTS IN THIS THREAD IS MAKING ME FEEL LIKE I'M TAKING CRAZY PILLS.
If you're going to convert audio to a digital form in realtime anyway we have this new amazing invention called the WRITTEN LANGUAGE.
Holy over-engineering batman! Is text too old-fashioned?