Facebook ‘translating’ Wales into England in St David’s Day messages

Eagle-eyed Facebook users have noticed that the site is ‘translating’ Wales into England when users wish each other a Happy St David’s Day in Welsh.

The site is translating ‘Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus’ followed by a Welsh flag emoji into Happy Dewi’s Dy followed by an English flag emoji.

Facebook’s translations used to be created by users but are now powered completely by AI – and in this case, the AI seems to have got the wrong end of the stick.

Last week Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, announced a new AI research project to create voice translation software that works for “everyone in the world.”

The project was announced as part of an event focusing on the broad range of benefits Meta believes AI can offer the company’s metaverse plans.

“The ability to communicate with anyone in any language — that’s a superpower people have dreamed of forever, and AI is going to deliver that within our lifetimes,” said Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in an online presentation.

Wales may well hope that it is a little more accurate than the current system.