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The YouTube like button glows when you say "smash that like button" [video]

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Re: The YouTube like button glows when you say "smash that like button" [video]

#101

Post by xcv123 »

slg wrote: post #39
gruez wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It calls attention to the fact that Youtube isn't just serving me videos neutrally, it knows what is being said in those videos at the exact moment it is said. It highlights how much Google analyses the content of its videos in a way that more neutral features like automatic transcripts don't and in turn how much that can teach Google about me based on the videos I watch. How else do you think the "up next" and "re…

>How else do you think the "up next" and "recommended videos for you" feature works? Did you think they were serving up relevant videos purely out of chance? It is absolutely possible to serve recommendations in a content agnostic way based on other user behavior. That is how the Youtube's recommendations worked at least initially. It should be obvious that they didn't have this ability to analyze content when Youtub…

> It is absolutely possible to serve recommendations in a content agnostic way based on other user behavior.

Yes but the quality and accuracy of that system would be inferior, with a long delay until it gathers enough collaborative filtering information to be useful.

Re: The YouTube like button glows when you say "smash that like button" [video]

#102

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

slg wrote: post #18

I know this is just a fun little easter egg, but features like this seems a little risky to me. It calls attention to the fact that Youtube isn't just serving me videos neutrally, it knows what is being said in those videos at the exact moment it is said. It highlights how much Google analyses the content of its videos in a way that more neutral features like automatic transcripts don't and in turn how much that can…

"It highlights how Google analyses the content of its videos..."

Google analyses the content of the uploaders' videos yet "YouTube search", from the end user's perspective, is seemingly searching strings in titles, maybe tags. These titles generally suck for this purpose, even containing unicode garbage. Throw in all the "recommended" crap in the "results", videos that do not contain the strings being searched, and it barely feels like search at all. The end user is sent "results" she never asked for.

Re: The YouTube like button glows when you say "smash that like button" [video]

#103

Post by root_axis »

slg wrote: post #18

I know this is just a fun little easter egg, but features like this seems a little risky to me. It calls attention to the fact that Youtube isn't just serving me videos neutrally, it knows what is being said in those videos at the exact moment it is said. It highlights how much Google analyses the content of its videos in a way that more neutral features like automatic transcripts don't and in turn how much that can…

I'm not seeing the risk. It's mostly common knowledge that YouTube analyzes video content for dozens of reasons like Content ID, flagging for sensitive content, etc (e.g. applying covid19 warning labels).

There's a whole bunch of lore about the types of words and phrases (such as slurs and profanity) that can affect algorithm rankings, monetization, or child-restriction.

Doing a regex search for "smash that like button" is trivial by comparison.

Re: The YouTube like button glows when you say "smash that like button" [video]

#104

Post by johnfn »

slg wrote: post #87
johnfn wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think you would have to be naive to think the capability to do this type of analysis on the transcribed text was designed for only this feature and would never be used for anything else. Why would you have to be naive to believe this? The subtitles, with timings, are available on the client-side already. You seem to allude that doing this work would require some sort of deep analysis work. I think it's really mor…

It isn’t about this requiring “deep analysis work”. It is the difference between some analysis and no analysis. That increase from 0 to 1 is always the biggest hurdle to clear when it comes to any corporate behavior like this. This feature is like walking into your kitchen one day to find a dead cockroach. I’m saying that is an indication of a cockroach problem while you’re effectively responding with “it’s fine, the…

In a previous post, you said this:

> This feature suggests Google understands what was said.

Running .includes() on the client does not imply that Google has any "understanding" of what was said. It only implies that they ran .includes() on the client. includes() does not "understand" anything.

The thing I really don't understand is this: the fact that Google has closed captions at all implies they do an enormous more "analysis" than this minor feature could possibly require. If you understand how Google does CCs and what that means, this shouldn't have bothered you at all.

In your analogy, it's like you see a mound of a hundred thousand cockroaches, but you're are worried about a dust speck in another room.

Re: The YouTube like button glows when you say "smash that like button" [video]

#106

Post by dylan604 »

root_axis wrote: post #99
dylan604 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you really think that Googs has implemented a regex for this little easter egg without parsing the rest of the content in a much more meaningful manner as the original comment is suggesting? i'm in agreement that the levels of what these platforms can infer about the content you consume is beyond creepy.

Yes, because a regex match is cheap, easy and predictable. I don't see a reason why it needs to be any more complicated than that.

but that's not how Googs makes money

Re: The YouTube like button glows when you say "smash that like button" [video]

#107

Post by root_axis »

dylan604 wrote: post #106
root_axis wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because a regex match is cheap, easy and predictable. I don't see a reason why it needs to be any more complicated than that.

but that's not how Googs makes money

What does that have to do with anything? The text transcript for the video already exists on the client, implementing this behavior is trivial with that in mind. Whatever creepy analysis YouTube is doing (which I don't doubt they are), this feature isn't evidence of it.

Re: The YouTube like button glows when you say "smash that like button" [video]

#108

Post by mrguyorama »

cjs_ac wrote: post #27

Given that YouTube uses the like and subscribe buttons as inputs for its recommendation algorithm, doesn't this feature just aid and abet content creators in gaming YouTube's system?

Google WANTS creators to embrace the algorithm. The algorithm being the only useful way to get views means google gets to shape how people make stuff for youtube. "Gaming the system" is the INTENDED result.

The best example of this is clickbait thumbnails. Nearly every creator I am subscribed to has expressed hatred for them, and yet they mostly still make them. Why?

Because, when youtube shows your thumbnail to someone, if they do anything other than click on that thumbnail, your channel/video is downranked in the algorithm (because it has "low conversion"). Every creator is in a zero sum, fully antagonistic war with every other creator to get you to click on their video instead of someone else's. If a channel has low enough "conversion" for long enough, youtube will stop showing that video to potential viewers, including your actual subscribers. For a channel to survive and make enough money to pay rent and things, you have to play the dumb algorithm games. Patreon is literally the only alternative.

Youtube prefers it this way because then they get to crowdsource more addictive and "engagement driving" content through millions of creators, rather than just a department in google (which honestly they probably still have). They didn't have to tell anyone to make "more stupid clickbait thumbnails", they did it themselves because it was encouraged by the incentives given to them. A Youtube where everyone plays the algorithms and thumbnail games literally earns more money and views than a youtube where every creator is only driven by their own desires to make good art. Google has been doing this since they bought Youtube. Early on, only videos longer than ten minutes could get ads, so every video ballooned to ten minutes and one second in length.

Re: The YouTube like button glows when you say "smash that like button" [video]

#109

Post by slg »

johnfn wrote: post #104
slg wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn’t about this requiring “deep analysis work”. It is the difference between some analysis and no analysis. That increase from 0 to 1 is always the biggest hurdle to clear when it comes to any corporate behavior like this. This feature is like walking into your kitchen one day to find a dead cockroach. I’m saying that is an indication of a cockroach problem while you’re effectively responding with “it’s fine, the…

In a previous post, you said this: > This feature suggests Google understands what was said. Running .includes() on the client does not imply that Google has any "understanding" of what was said. It only implies that they ran .includes() on the client. includes() does not "understand" anything. The thing I really don't understand is this: the fact that Google has closed captions at all implies they do an enormous mor…

>Running .includes() on the client does not imply that Google has any "understanding" of what was said. It only implies that they ran .includes() on the client. includes() does not "understand" anything.

Do you want to have a good faith conversation about this? Because going back to debating the meaning of "understanding" after I already said this was misleading is not a good way to have a conversation.

>The thing I really don't understand is this: the fact that Google has closed captions at all implies they do an enormous more "analysis" than this minor feature could possibly require. If you understand how Google does CCs and what that means, this shouldn't have bothered you at all.

Can we set up a baseline that there is a difference between content agnostic analysis and content aware analysis? Transcripts are content agnostic in that they can be produced without any comprehension of the words said. This feature is content aware in that it is looking for specific meaning in the words said. Do you not see any difference between these two?

Re: The YouTube like button glows when you say "smash that like button" [video]

#110

Post by mcphage »

everforward wrote: post #33
gruez wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It calls attention to the fact that Youtube isn't just serving me videos neutrally, it knows what is being said in those videos at the exact moment it is said. It highlights how much Google analyses the content of its videos in a way that more neutral features like automatic transcripts don't and in turn how much that can teach Google about me based on the videos I watch. How else do you think the "up next" and "re…

Up Next and recommended videos don't require understanding the content of the videos. They could, as an example, find other users that watch similar videos and pick a video you haven't seen out of the things the other users have watched. It wouldn't surprise me if they use transcripts, but neither feature strictly requires it. I think the real risk here is users extrapolating from "YouTube can automatically respond t…

> Could they identify things that aren't suitable for YouTube Kids but end up there anyways?

I sure wish they did.

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