1w ago

YouTube secretly tested AI video enhancement without notifying creators

arstechnica.com YouTube secretly tested AI video enhancement without notifying creators

Google says this isn’t technically “GenAI,” but it is altering videos without warning.

Is it a conspiracy? For months, YouTubers have been quietly griping that something looked off in their recent video uploads. Following a deeper analysis by a popular music channel, Google has now confirmed that it has been testing a feature that uses AI to artificially enhance videos. The company claims this is part of its effort to "provide the best video quality," but it's odd that it began doing so without notifying creators or offering any way to opt out of the experiment.

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Although, this is a distinction without a difference—it's still AI of a sort being used to modify videos.
It's actually a big difference. "AI" is an almost meaningless term without specifying what type of AI it is. ChatGPT is an AI, Sora is an AI, the "magic eraser" in your photos app is an AI, the AOL chatbot "SmarterChild" was also AI. "AI" can mean almost anything even remotely adjacent to "machine learning" right now. Just calling a tool "AI" says literally nothing about what the tool is or what it does. This sort of reductive, dismissive attitude toward anything an author doesn't understand in tech articles is getting really worrying lately.
- Real "AI" doesn't exist anyway. We may as well call it Algorithmic Idiocy.
- "AI" can mean almost anything even remotely adjacent to "machine learning" right now.
  And that's why it's become a meaningless term. If that's what we're being told we're supposed to call it then that's what we're going to call it. Blame greedy companies marketing for that, not the journalists and people trying to make sense of the endless stream of meaningless garbage pouring out of these so-called "AI" companies.
- When all the music “radio stations” effectively changed nothing but called their algorithms “AI” to follow the hype.

Tinkering in this way with someone‘s work should be regarded as copyright infringement regardless of what their TOS say. It shouldn‘t be allowed and Youtube should pay up big time for this theft. But of course this is probably not how it‘s going to be handled because Google is mega rich and the law does not apply to AI somehow.

Fucking hell all the dispotian AI taking over ruling the world shit and no one predicted the much more boring version: a company unleashing a half-assed AI to make their stupid services more profitable and steal all your data and rights to make it happen.
- That’s a more boring version of the larger thing happening: ruling class decided it’s YOLO time, screw what the middle and lower class think. Buy a dictator, merge the military with the prisons, take over whatever you can laws and legacy be damned.
  
  America is at the ‘looting the coffers’ stage of imperial collapse

I'm sure they also trained their models on all the content at the same time too.

I have noticed that some of the regular creators I watch seem to look a little AI lately. I honestly have been questioning reality a bit; that’s probably the point.

"enhancement"

RIP MLG videos

The app wouldn't start on my roku. It said "can't start because there's not enough space" so I deleted YouTube.
LOL fuck you YouTube assholes! I can't believe it was that easy. Good riddance!
- I can't say I like how you arrived at this conclusion, but I do like that you arrived at it. Fuck em
  
  Well I started deleting apps like crazy and it would still not run. So I did the next best thing and got rid of the problem all together!
  It was freeing!

Nvidia has been upscaling content for users using the Nvidia shield since I think the 2019 revision, and I think offers the driver level video streaming upscale since 2023 with RTX Video Super Resolution. The concept isn't exactly new (and there are video players that basically have 3rd party upscale algorithms, doesn't need to be "AI" to do so)
- They airbrushed people's faces.
  If a computer changed my face because I'm too ugly for advertisers I'd fucking kill myself.
  Humiliating. Degrading. Dehumanizing.
  
  Killing yourself in that scenario seems like you've selected the wrong target. It's certainly not yourself's fault.
  Being unapologetically and relentlessly human is the best revenge we can get on these dehumanizing technologies, and to be human you need to first and foremost be alive.
  
  I knew I recognized the AI smear face tell sign. I saw people I used to watch and I thought, why do their videos look so strange all of a sudden. Like it's AI or something.
  Faces looked smudged
  Contrast was too high
  Sometimes weird lighting and odd things happening with the frame rate
  Even looked like puppets lip syncing sometimes
  I was like 🤔 this has many of the signs of AI video. Wtf is going on here.
  LO AND BEHOLD. I knew I wasn't going crazy.
  
  face smoothing is a side effect of AI upscaling, i doubt that was the goal.
- That is AI
  
  Nvidia's stuff is AI, but things like MadVR and stuff aren't. Even older upscales like ESRGAN is ML based, but not necessarily AI, as the terms been pretty diluted. if anyone wants to CLAIM that its AI, then you'd have to understand many of these algorithms existed before the modern use of FP16/FP8/Int8 based acceleration existed which defines the modern AI stuff.
  I should also mention, the Shield Pro's upscale was also pre Turing. the Nvidia Tegra X1 is Maxwell based.
- Almost every TV has this built in too. Upscaling is not what people are complaining about.

Do words not matter anymore when it comes to 'journalism?'
They didn't secretly do anything. This was publicly.
If it wasn't, we wouldn't fucking know would we?
- "Secretly tested" meaning they didn't inform users when they started doing it. Y'know, like any experimental feature is called out and explained? I hope you're just having a bad day because this is some pretty rough reading comprehension
  
  Both, bad day, but I stand by it. It's not a secret if what you're doing is immediately in public view.
  Doesn't fit the bill whatsoever:
  secret /sē′krĭt/
  adjective Kept hidden from knowledge or view; concealed. "a secret identity; a secret passageway." Not expressed; inward. "secret desires."
  "YouTube brazenly....." Would have been a way more appropriate tagline
- Public now. Secretive at the time.
  
  It's a public facing platform.
- Do words not matter anymore when it comes to 'journalism?'
  I think the better question for you is if you think words don't have real definitions, and do they? What do 'secretly' or 'publicly' really mean? Do they rely on explicit knowledge or just the ability to maybe figure it out on your own?
  They didn't secretly do anything. This was publicly.
  So I can steal from you without telling you, then when you find out, I can claim it was public knowledge because you found out after the fact?
  If it wasn't, we wouldn't fucking know would we?
  Yeah, finding out about something that was done without your knowledge or consent beforehand isn't doing it secretly if you find out about it later!
  
  It would be a lot like stealing from me while I'm looking directly at you and you don't tell me while we're both on national television. That would be a way more accurate representation.

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