Gmail, Google’s widely used email service, has reportedly been incorrectly translating email content, including German texts, for several months. The error, detailed by the German news portal T-Online, resulted in distorted and erroneous displays for users.
According to T-Online’s report, Google acknowledged the issue began in early June and stated that it has initiated the rollout of revised Gmail versions to rectify the problem. The company indicated it became aware of the error thanks to information provided by the news portal.
The source of the problem appears to be an overly aggressive translation function that, during language detection, placed undue weight on English-language technical elements within the email source code. This caused non-English emails to be erroneously identified and automatically “translated”. Google stated that users had consented to this functionality, describing the affected user base as “a very small number.
The errors were sometimes egregious, with terms like “Ass” (German for a playing card) being misinterpreted and displayed as “Arsch” a vulgar term. In other instances, the artificial intelligence reportedly reversed the attribution of military involvement, incorrectly displaying “Ukrainian troops” as “Russian troops”. Google reiterated that they believe this constitutes a technical problem.
Josef van Genabith, head of the language technology and multilingualism research division at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) and a professor for translation-oriented language technology at the University of Saarland, characterized the issue as “rather a curiosity”. While acknowledging the importance of addressing and resolving the problem, he emphasized that Google’s substantial user base necessitates careful attention to avoid the potential for misinformation.
