Facebook's translation system incorrectly translated Chinese President Xi Jinping's name from Burmese to English as 'Mr Shithole' due to a technical error where the system lacked his name in its Burmese database.
Facebook Inc experienced a translation error during Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Myanmar in early 2018. The company's automatic translation system incorrectly translated Xi Jinping's name from Burmese to English as 'Mr Shithole' when translating posts on the platform. The error appeared in official posts on Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi's Facebook page about the visit, as well as in local news headlines. Facebook explained that the system did not have President Xi Jinping's name in its Burmese database and attempted to guess at the translation. The company stated that translation tests of similar words starting with 'xi' and 'shi' in Burmese also produced the same offensive result. Facebook issued an apology and stated they fixed the technical issue and were taking steps to prevent recurrence. The report notes that Facebook has faced previous problems with Burmese translation, including in 2018 when the translation feature was temporarily removed after producing problematic results, particularly regarding posts about Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims during the military crackdown.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
AI systems that fail to perform reliably or effectively under varying conditions, exposing them to errors and failures that can have significant consequences, especially in critical applications or areas that require moral reasoning.
AI system
Due to a decision or action made by an AI system
Unintentional
Due to an unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed
No population impact data reported.