How, When, and Why to Use AI: Strategic Uses of Professional Perceptions and Industry Lore in the Dubbing Industry

Laurena Bernabo, "How, When, and Why to Use AI: Strategic Uses of Professional Perceptions and Industry Lore in the Dubbing Industry." International Journal of Communication, forthcoming.

Abstract: Building on interviews with more than a dozen dubbing professionals, this article centers on dubbing professionals’ perspectives on the changing role of artificial intelligence in the dubbing industry. I trace developments in dubbing from human-centered practices to the current landscape where neural machine translations and artificial intelligence are used with increasing frequency, but not without limits. Using an industry lore approach, I demonstrate how professionals’ current predispositions and aversions to new digital technologies shape the contexts in which those technologies are deployed. While AI causes concerns about automation and job security throughout media industries, current dubbing industry lore effectively limits the utilization of AI technologies in ways that defend dubbing as a culturally rich process that requires a human touch and thus protect dubbing professionals’ jobs.