YouTube has responded: > We hear you, and want to clear things up! This is from an experiment to improve video quality with traditional machine learning – not GenAI. More info from @YouTubeInsider here: > No GenAI, no upscaling. We're running an experiment on select YouTube Shorts that uses traditional machine learning technology to unblur, denoise, and improve clarity in videos during processing (similar to what a m…
This outrage feels odd, TV has "improved" movies for ages, youtube doing it with machine learning is the same idea, are we really upset because an ear looks a bit clearer?
The well is already poisoned. I'm refraining from hiring editors merely because I suspect there's a high chance they'll just use an LLM. All recent books I'm reading is with suspicion that they have been written by AI. However, polished to a point that we humans start to lose our unique tone is what style guides that go into the minutiae of comma placement try do do. And I'm currently reading a book I'm 100% sure has…
> suspicion that they have been written by AI "By AI" or "with AI?" If I write the book and have AI proof read things as I go, or critique my ideas, or point out which points do I need to add more support for, is that written "by AI?" When Big Corp says 30% of their code is now written "by AI," did they write the code by following thoughtful instruction from a human expert, who interpeted the work to be done, made de…
Good point. I've read books with minor mistakes that slipped past the editor. Not a big deal, but it takes me out of the flow when reading. And they're things that I think an AI could easily catch.
Unfortunately the article doesn't have an example, or a comparison image. Other reports are similarly useless as well. The most that seemed to happen is that the wrinkles in someone's ear changed. In case anyone else wants to see it in action: https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/1lllnse/youtube_sh... I skimmed the videos as well, and there is much more talk about this thing, and barely any examples of it. As th…
If you click through to Rhett Schul's (sp?) video you can see examples comparing the original video (from non-Shorts videos) with the sharpened video (from Shorts). Basically YouTube is applying a sharpening filter to "Shorts" videos.
Flickr used to apply an auto-enhancement (sharpening, saturation, etc) effect to photos[0]. It would be really weird seeing a photo locally and then see the copy on Flickr that looked better somehow.
Aside:
The mention of Technorati tags (and even Flickr) in the linked blog post hit me right in the Web 2.0 nostalgia feels.
What's the biggest example outside of his thumbnails?
So much of the channel consisting of Hot Spicy Take content really turned me off from hearing anything else he has to say, which is unfortunate, because I liked his music theory videos when I was learning about that. Lots of very hateful, negative content too. It didn’t take me long to find the video “why this new artist sucks.” Another find, what I assume is an overblown small quibble turned into clickbait videos, w…
> Lots of very hateful, negative content too. It didn’t take me long to find the video “why this new artist sucks.”
If you're referring to his video I'm Sorry...This New Artist Completely Sucks[1], then it's a video about a fully AI generated "artist" he made using various AI tools.
So it's not hateful against anyone. Though the title is a bit clickbait-y, I'll give you that.
From the linked tweet from YouTube's head of editorial: "No GenAI, no upscaling. We're running an experiment on select YouTube Shorts that uses traditional machine learning technology to unblur, denoise, and improve clarity in videos during processing (similar to what a modern smartphone does when you record a video)" https://x.com/youtubeinsider/status/1958199532363317467?s=46 Considering how aggressive YouTube is w…
If you watch the youtube video[1] linked in the article you get a much better examples, that clearly look like AI slop. Tho I do understand that people's ability to discern AI slop varies wildly. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86nhP8tvbLY
> that clearly look like AI slop
That's not what AI slop means. There's no GenAI.
I watched the video. It's literally just some mild sharpening in the side-by-side comparison.
As a creator, they are also the most hostile platform, randomly removing video with no point of contact for help or fully removing channels (with livelihoods behind them) because of "a system glitch" but again, not point of contact to get it fixed.
Pretty much every creator I follow has complained about something being removed without any clear explanation or the ability to contact anyone and ask questions. Say what you want about Microsoft, but if I have a problem with something I've pretty much always ended up getting support for that problem. I think Google's lack of response adds to their "mystique". But it also creates superstitions since creators don't re…
YouTube is “riding a tiger,” and the moment creators realize they hold the real power, the game is up. I believe the platform purposely creates a fear of the unknown with intermittent reward–punishment cycles. Random rules enforcement, videos taken down, strikes, demonetization, throttling... The algorithm becomes a sort of deity that people try to appease and they turn into cultish devotees preforming endless rounds of strange rituals in hopes of "divine" monetization favor.
People voluntarily visit the internet because it gives them things they want. This is an article about unwelcome changes being automatically made. Those things are different.
This is an absolutely huge deal. It doesn't matter how small the scope of the change is, they thought it was a good idea to apply mandatory AI post-processing to user content without consent or acknowledgement. Secret experiments are never meant to be little one-offs, they're always carried out with the goal of executing a larger vision. If they cared about user input, they'd make this a configurable setting.
Again, this isn't GenAI . The idea of it being "without consent" is absurd. Your phone doesn't ask you for consent to apply smoothing to the Bayer filter, or denoising to your zoom. Sites don't ask you for consent to recompress your video. This is just computational image processing. Phones have been doing this stuff for many years now. This isn't adding new elements to a video. It's not adding body parts or changing…