Re: [RFC] Introducing AI Agents to Git Localization

From: Jiang Xin <worldhello.net@gmail.com>
Date: Feb 5, 2026, 02:06 UTC
Message-ID: <CANYiYbF295W88XUXqeiO9SXjDTMbJo9h8=mNk3xNALPHTXwvsQ@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <aYNC5dlL8wdwdFuy@kitsune.suse.cz>

On Wed, Feb 4, 2026 at 9:00 PM Michal Suchánek <msuchanek@suse.de> wrote:

Show 22 quoted lines

>
> On Wed, Feb 04, 2026 at 12:58:05PM +0100, Peter Krefting wrote:
> > 2026-02-04 10:31 skrev Jiang Xin:
> >
> > > Please try using AI coding tools to update translations in po/XX.po or
> > > review historical translations, following the prompts below:
> >
> > No.
> >
> > Please disable this altogether for the Swedish localization. "Translation"
> > using stochastic parrots is not mature and just creates gibberish that takes
> > more time to clean up than to do the translation from scratch manually.
>
> Hello,
>
> a similar attempt was widely reported, eg. here:
> https://linuxiac.com/ai-controversy-forces-end-of-mozilla-japanese-sumo-community/
>
> As pointed out the availiability of the tools is not necessarily a
> problem in itself. The problem in that particular case was that Mozilla
> automatically applied the tools to existing translations, even
> well-maintained ones.

Thank you for the context—this is a good reminder that automation should never override community judgment.

To be clear, using AI as a translation aid is entirely up to each contributor. In Git 2.53’s l10n cycle, I temporarily handled the Chinese translation (as the usual lead was unavailable), translated all new strings, and fixed many issues in older translations—both speed and quality were surprisingly good.

As an l10n coordinator, I’ve long struggled with reviewing PRs: while git-po-helper catches technical errors, it can’t assess translation quality or detect irrelevant content like ads or political text. Here, AI can help flag such issues during review.

That’s why we updated po/README.md and invited teams to try these tools—not to impose automation, but to explore how AI can assist human reviewers, language by language.

> Abandoned or completely missing translations may benefit from AI
> translation when the topic is general enough that there is likely a lot
> of training data available. Unfortunately, git with its specific jargon
> may not be the most optimal project for automated translation.

For Git’s Simplified Chinese localization, we follow a simple practice: a glossary is included in the header of `po/zh_CN.po`, and all contributors—whether human or AI—are expected to adhere to it.