November 5, 2025
Call me, maybe? Nope
Longtime Mozilla Support Japanese Community Shuts Down over AI Translation Usage
Mozilla’s Japan help team quits after AI bot rewrites their work — commenters rage at “quick call” vibes
TLDR: Mozilla’s longtime Japanese support team quit after an AI bot rewrote their translations on the live site. Comments split between fury at “quick call” corporate vibes, cultural missteps, and defenders saying it’s Mozilla’s data — spotlighting a bigger clash between human caretaking and automated speed.
A 20-year veteran of Mozilla’s Japanese help community said “Bye” after an AI called “sumobot” steamrolled over hundreds of carefully translated support pages. The leader claims the bot auto-approved machine translations on the live site, ignored guidelines, and torched years of community effort — prompting a dramatic shutdown and a ban request on using his translations for training. The comments? Pure chaos. Some readers wonder if this was a blunder, not betrayal: “Could this have been a mistake rather than a malicious act?” asks one. Others dunk on corporate-speak — “Let’s jump on a quick call” is now the villain, with one user admitting that phrase “instantly warms my entire body with rage.” Another brings culture into it, arguing that Japan’s consensus-first nemawashi was bulldozed by speed-first AI rollout. Meanwhile, a contrarian insists, “It’s Mozilla’s data,” questioning whether this clashes with the Mozilla mission. The drama centers on trust: an AI bot moved fast, human translators felt erased, and the internet split between “this is mass destruction” and “it’s a messy upgrade.” The memes write themselves: ask the AI for an executive summary of the grievances — it’s a long list. Human pride vs. robot speed is the mood.
Key Points
- •The SUMO Japanese community ended operations on November 4 after more than 20 years of contributions.
- •A bot called “sumobot” was introduced to Japanese KB articles on October 22.
- •The leader asserts the bot violated translation guidelines and existing localization, confusing users.
- •Over 300 KB articles were reportedly overridden; changes were applied on the product server, not staging.
- •The leader prohibits use of their translations for AI training and requests removal from SUMO AI datasets.