So today I found out about an app called Hand Talk that's supposed to be a translation tool from English into ASL, and Portuguese into Libras, using animated characters, but...
- "Hand Talk" is already a commonly-used name for Plains Indian Sign Language, and so search results for the Hand Talk app end up burying or displacing search results for this endangered indigenous sign language.
- Hand Talk's translations are according to multiple reviews absolutely fucking dogshit, so dogshit that it would in fact seem like no proficient signers were actually involved in its development.
When the app boasts about being powered by "artificial intelligence", and its website has a whole page titled "for your company", I can't exactly say that I'm surprised. It really seems like this is just some tech startup trying to make big promises about accessibility and AI in order to win investors, reminding me of much of the technology shown in this video — while Hand Talk's main purpose in practice is probably just to allow corpos to cut costs on accessibility by "letting the AI do it".
It becomes quite striking, then, that on the "for you" page of their official website, that all five reviews that they choose to highlight from regular everyday people come from hearing people with no prior knowledge of Deaf culture or SL, rather than actual Deaf people talking about how the app has helped them; that none of the awards they highlight on the "about us" page come from Deaf organizations, and only one of the awards is actually related to accessibility; and that none of the three founders of the startup have any apparent background in Deaf culture whatsoever... Yes, I am sure that "advertising graduate and strategic communication specialist elected by Forbes as one of the most promising young people in Brazil" decided to found a sign language translation app Out Of The Goodness Of His Heart.
But hey, it's not like I'm proficient in any sign languages myself, and it's not like I've actually given the app a try, so maybe I'm just being presumptive from just a few bad reviews and a general "gross tech startup" vibe that this app is shittier than it really is. If any Deaf people have any positive experiences with this app, or with any apps like it, then I'd quite like to know your thoughts.
What stood out to me about the Hand Talk app was how it uses animated characters, because this reminded me of my own idea for SLiki, a sign language wiki made up of collaborative character animations. The difference is that Hand Talk presents itself as a translation tool, whereas SLiki would assume its users to already be proficient in the sign language in question; and while Hand Talk has a closed set of signs that it knows, and fingerspells everything else, SLiki would allow users to freely modify and crowdsource signs. And also SLiki would probably use Reimu and Marisa or some shit as its default models instead of these generic corporate art style characters that Hand Talk uses, and SLiki would be FOSS that would actually, y'know, try to incorporate its target demographic into the development process.
Once again, If Only I Knew How To Code.