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YouTube made AI enhancements to videos without warning or permission

bbc.com

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Re: YouTube made AI enhancements to videos without warning or permission

#31

Post by zozbot234 »

Springtime wrote: post #11

Youtube says this was done for select Youtube Shorts as a denoising process. However most popular channels on Youtube, which seem to be the pool selected for this experiment, typically already have well lit and graded videos shouldn't benefit much from extra denoising from a visual point of view. It's true though that aggressive denoising gives things an artificially generated look since both processes use denoising…

> Perhaps this was done to optimize video encoding, since the less noise/surface detail there is the easier it is to compress.

If so it's really just another kind of lossy compression. No different in principle from encoding a video to AV-1 format.

Re: YouTube made AI enhancements to videos without warning or permission

#32

Post by jakub_g »

watwut wrote: post #26

Now to that stupid robot auto translation on non-english videos I never asked for and can not turn off.

The "can not turn off" part is the most jarring. Seriously, did none of Californian PMs hear about the concept of "being multilingual" and not needing to translate non-English content?

---

By the way, this reminds me also of another stupid Google thing related to languages:

Say your Chrome is set to English. When encountering another language page, Chrome will (since a decade ago or so) helpfully ask you to auto-translate by default. When you click a button "Never translate ", it will add language to the list which is sent out to every HTTP request the browser makes via `Accept-Language` header (it's not obvious this happens unless you're the kind of person who lives in DevTools and inspects outgoing traffic).

Fast-forward N years, Chrome privacy team realizes this increases fingerprinting surface, making every user less unique, so they propose this: "Reduce fingerprinting in Accept-Language header information" (https://chromestatus.com/feature/5188040623390720)

So basically they compensate for one "feature" with another, instead of not doing the first thing in the first place.

Re: YouTube made AI enhancements to videos without warning or permission

#33

Post by scyzoryk_xyz »

watwut wrote: post #26

Now to that stupid robot auto translation on non-english videos I never asked for and can not turn off.

Nobody asked for it and you can't find discourse on the subject or give it a name, I've never had a feature made me feel more gas-lit. And I pay for premium dammit.

Re: YouTube made AI enhancements to videos without warning or permission

#34

Post by scyzoryk_xyz »

jakub_g wrote: post #32
watwut wrote: post #26

Now to that stupid robot auto translation on non-english videos I never asked for and can not turn off.

The "can not turn off" part is the most jarring. Seriously, did none of Californian PMs hear about the concept of "being multilingual" and not needing to translate non-English content? --- By the way, this reminds me also of another stupid Google thing related to languages: Say your Chrome is set to English. When encountering another language page, Chrome will (since a decade ago or so) helpfully ask you to auto-tran…

"Złomnik: Dodge Caravan Is a Large Wall Unit"

Re: YouTube made AI enhancements to videos without warning or permission

#35

Post by QuantumNomad_ »

djmips wrote: post #15
Springtime wrote: post #11

Youtube says this was done for select Youtube Shorts as a denoising process. However most popular channels on Youtube, which seem to be the pool selected for this experiment, typically already have well lit and graded videos shouldn't benefit much from extra denoising from a visual point of view. It's true though that aggressive denoising gives things an artificially generated look since both processes use denoising…

If we take them at their word then it's just an extension of technology to optimize video... and it's called AI because buzzwords and hence controversy.

> it's just an extension of technology to optimize video... and it's called AI because buzzwords and hence controversy.

The controversy is that YouTube is making strange changes to the videos of users, that make the videos look fake.

YouTube creators put hours upon hours on writing, shooting and editing their videos. And those that do it full time often depend on YouTube and their audience for income.

If YouTube messes up the videos of creators and makes the videos look like they are fake, of course the creators are gonna be upset!

Re: YouTube made AI enhancements to videos without warning or permission

#36

Post by anthonj »

I going to say something controversial, bu why is this even surprising? Google and YouTube have been framing themself as the kind company that will appropriate your work and make make money out of you. "You are the product" is a repeated endlessy even on social media, and this it thier private paltform after all.

At this point getting involved with youtube is just the usual naive behaviour that somehow you are the exception and bad things won't happen to you.

Re: YouTube made AI enhancements to videos without warning or permission

#37

Post by gblargg »

seb1204 wrote: post #28
artninja1988 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just don't watch them?

Easy on the website. Very click and swipe intensive on the phone in my opinion. Shorts are front and centre of the app and the search screens. I don't see any feed of suggested videos anymore.

Why would someone use the YouTube app? It's cancer.

Re: YouTube made AI enhancements to videos without warning or permission

#39

Post by antiloper »

therein wrote: post #17
jszymborski wrote: post #2

So I feel like article doesn't address the "why" of it all. Why auto AI upscale?

To make people more accustomed to the AI generated look so that when they release their next Veo integration to YouTube content creator tools, these videos will stand out less as unnatural.

There's also the on-by default, can't be disabled, auto-dubbing YouTube performs on every video that's not in the single browser's language. The dubbing quality is poor for the same reason, to intentionally expose viewers to AI content.

It's 100% a push to remove human creators from the equation entirely.

Re: YouTube made AI enhancements to videos without warning or permission

#40

Post by rschiavone »

chinathrow wrote: post #30

> YouTube did not respond to the BBC's questions about whether users will be given a choice about AI tweaking their videos. Says everything. Hey PM at YouTube: How about you think stuff through before even starting to waste time on stuff like this?

They turned their brains off many years ago. Now it's all about AI, showing ads down our throats and keep children hooked to their iPads.
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