A few days ago, I posted this new introduction to my YouTube channel:

I would not usually repeat a video here, especially so quickly, but I used this one to undertake an experiment.

I am involved in making some training videos on tax at present. One of the needs is to translate these into several languages. So, I experimented with the new AI-driven translation facilities in the professional version of Descript, which is one of the programs we already use for video production. That software produces the transcripts and subtitles that we publish on all the videos we put out.

In addition to translation when undertaking this experiment, we also tried Descript's dubbing facility. That uses my voice and makes it appear as if I am speaking in French rather than using a generic voice.  This is the resulting French version of that introduction video:

The French text is:

Bonjour, je suis Richard Murphy. Je suis professeur de pratique comptable à la Sheffield University Management School. J'ai été expert-comptable en exercice pendant 40 ans, et j'ai également été professeur d'économie politique internationale à la City, University of London pendant plusieurs années. Cette combinaison d'économiste politique et de comptable praticien est inhabituelle.

Cela influence l'ensemble de cette chaîne YouTube, car cette chaîne traite de ce qui se passe dans l'économie politique, de ce qui se passe dans l'économie sous-jacente, et de la manière dont le monde de la fiscalité et de la réglementation influence ces deux aspects, en bien comme en mal. Je ne suppose pas que vous connaissiez quoi que ce soit sur ces sujets lorsque je réalise mes vidéos.

Je travaille assez dur pour m'assurer qu'ils soient accessibles à tous. Mon objectif est assez simple. Je veux que vous compreniez le monde qui vous entoure afin que vous puissiez également participer aux débats que j'apprécie tant. Si j'atteins cet objectif, eh bien, ces vidéos auront valu la peine d'être faites. Si vous êtes d'accord avec cela, alors cliquez sur le bouton s'abonner, suivez cette cloche qui vous avertira lorsque nous publierons de nouvelles vidéos, ce qui est presque tous les jours, et j'ai hâte de vous voir bientôt.

I admit, my French is basic. My excuse is I have managed to never have a French lesson in my life. All the French I know has been picked up by speaking it.

My wife, who is considerably better qualified and more experienced in French than me, thought it sounded OK (she says I have to now speak in that accent all the time), but to be sure, I translated the French video made by Descript back into English through an entirely unrelated program, which was a free translator provided by Apple on my iPad. I got this:

Hello, I'm Richard Murphy. I am a professor of accounting practice at Sheffield University Management School. I was a practising public accountant for 40 years, and I was also a professor of international political economy at the City, University of London for several years. This combination of political economist and practising accountant is unusual.

This influences this entire YouTube channel, because this channel deals with what is happening in political economy, what is happening in the underlying economy, and how the world of taxation and regulation influences these two aspects, for good and bad. I don't suppose you know anything about these topics when I make my videos.

I work hard enough to make sure they are accessible to everyone. My goal is quite simple. I want you to understand the world around you so that you can also participate in the debates that I appreciate so much. If I achieve this goal, well, these videos will have been worth making. If you agree with this, then click on the subscribe button, follow this bell that will notify you when we publish new videos, which is almost every day, and I look forward to seeing you soon.

That is incredibly close to the original text.

I would stress that I am not planning to undertake this exercise for most videos produced here. This is an experiment, but I would appreciate some feedback from those who have a least a bit of a grasp of French. My questions are:

1. Does the translation sound OK?
2. Are there any obvious flaws?
3. Is it a problem that the lipsync is not perfect? We would have to make an avatar of me if that was an issue.
4. Is this usable, especially if the videos using it were not of extended duration?

Comments would be much appreciated.

And, just for fun, this is a German version, because I happen to be more fluent in German, so we made one in that as well: