[HN Gopher] YouTube will show labels on videos that use AI
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       YouTube will show labels on videos that use AI
        
       Author : mikece
       Score  : 97 points
       Date   : 2023-11-14 20:58 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (9to5google.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (9to5google.com)
        
       | thejarren wrote:
       | I have mixed feelings about this.
       | 
       | For the past few months, I've been marking videos as "not
       | interested" because they are AI-generated, and I can tell.
       | 
       | But the flip side is that as these tools become more prevalent,
       | it's not immediately clear to me how this line will be defined.
       | 
       | If people are using AI to generate scripts but are still reading
       | them, does that count? Or if they're using AI to generate the
       | images but have written the script, does that count?
       | 
       | It just seems messy, but I'm glad they're taking at least an
       | active approach to it. I also think it will be a sign of how
       | Google as a whole will treat AI generated content over time.
        
         | headcanon wrote:
         | I think if you're asking those questions then you're ahead of
         | where 99% of people are thinking about when they think about
         | "AI" (as are most of the folks on this site by selection bias).
         | I think as these tools mature and get included in more standard
         | tools like Adobe is doing then the distinction will blur enough
         | that there will be some new criteria. And at that point maybe
         | people won't care enough to have that distinction. But right
         | now, people care a lot and its (mostly) obvious enough, hence
         | the policy.
        
         | jabroni_salad wrote:
         | Honestly, I don't think web platforms care about the artistic
         | integrity or anything like that. It's more that they don't want
         | to have to be the storage destination for anyone that can
         | figure out how to hook up a video generator to a while(). This
         | segment of the userbase has the ability to grow to be 99% of
         | your resource usage overnight, and with video being the most
         | expensive form of media, it just isn't practical to welcome
         | them with open arms.
         | 
         | See also: why no consumer backup platform offers unlimited
         | quantities anymore. It only takes like a couple hundred
         | hoarders to bleed you dry, and those guys don't even stand to
         | profit from the activity like the get-rich-quick youtube and
         | kindle schemes are promising.
        
         | bryanrasmussen wrote:
         | what if you are writing the scripts and using text to speech to
         | read the scripts, but the text to speech tools now have AI
         | baked in them.
         | 
         | what if you are animating the content but using some tool with
         | AI components in it.
         | 
         | Not only does it seem messy but in the long run not feasible.
        
       | filterfiber wrote:
       | I've always struggled with where people draw the line.
       | 
       | Video scripts have been near algorythmic for humans already. Does
       | using chatgpt to make your script count as AI made? What if you
       | gave it an outline, walked through it, and guided it to what you
       | wanted - e.g. grammerly?
       | 
       | If you use machine learning to remove background noise,
       | backgrounds in general?
       | 
       | Generated stock images/props/scenes for video essays?
       | 
       | If you made the entire video by hand but use text2speech?
       | 
       | I think that "the script, images, and voice were all chatGPT" is
       | obviously "synthetic", but that's just the extreme. Humans have
       | been using technology to augment their creation abilities
       | forever.
       | 
       | My fear is a large amount of human made content will be called
       | "synthetic" because some specific part used "AI" (which nowadays
       | refers to literally any procedural/statistical/machine learning I
       | guess?)
        
         | believ3 wrote:
         | Yeah, it seems like the only "general solution" to this problem
         | is to measure the number of "human work hours" that went into
         | the production of a specific type of "content".
         | 
         | Content would then be labeled as "AI generated" if the "human
         | work hours" was less than X hours (like 0.5 hours).
         | 
         | Whereas content would not be labelled as "AI generated" if the
         | "human work hours" was greater than or equal to X hours (like
         | 0.5 hours).
         | 
         | That would likely require sharing with YouTube not just the
         | final work product, but rather _all_ the iterative work product
         | that led to the creation of the final work product (i.e.,
         | earlier drafts). When YouTube could calculate the number of
         | "human work hours" based on the incremental creation/edit
         | histories when analyzing all the drafts.
         | 
         | This is a very hard problem and unlikely to actually be solved
         | in this way.
        
           | _Algernon_ wrote:
           | So your solution is proof of work?
        
         | Andrex wrote:
         | It's blurry and will only get blurrier.
         | 
         | Maybe there is no line to draw, and maybe that's OK.
         | 
         | This all feels so new I'm hesitant to form strong feelings, but
         | I do think transparency while not required is appreciated. With
         | knowledge, I can draw my own conclusion. Without it, I may end
         | up feeling "duped."
         | 
         | Generally I want to continue enjoying human-created art. If
         | something is "more" human-made than not, that's a factor I'll
         | weigh as "better" and more authentic in my mind. But I'm also
         | trending towards preferring indie dramas over CG-filled
         | blockbusters, so I'm not pretending to be any sort of
         | bellwether.
        
         | pawelmurias wrote:
         | The line is clear, deepfake stuff is supposed to be labeled.
         | This is not a luddite moral panic measure that would label
         | scripts.
        
       | gumballindie wrote:
       | Excellent news - we need to label ai generated news, movies,
       | code, and so on. We also need a way to prevent data grabbing -
       | perhaps DRM for text and images.
        
         | Minor49er wrote:
         | DRM has failed consistently in the past. Why would it work this
         | time?
        
           | gumballindie wrote:
           | I dont know - but a way to protect content should be
           | implemented. Otherwise what's the plan? Let corporations
           | harvest ip and open source code then resell it, while we cant
           | do the same with theirs? Needs to be a level playing field.
        
             | JacobThreeThree wrote:
             | Have you read the Biden EO on AI?
             | 
             | The open source AI community has a lot more to worry about
             | than just trying to maintain a level playing field with
             | corporations.
        
               | gumballindie wrote:
               | Corporate ai is going to be useless if not trained
               | against quality content. That means blogs. If you can ban
               | microsoft's openai from taking your content for free and
               | you allow only open source projects with attribution to
               | do so then the advantage is yours. DRM wouldnt be
               | effective against non corporate, but against corporate
               | you'd have proof that they took something which you
               | explicitly didnt allow - cant claim "dont put it on the
               | internets if you dont want it stolen".
               | 
               | Also open source licensing should change to prevent them
               | from taking advantage.
               | 
               | Plenty of non ai open source code that's been taken for
               | free by billionaire corporations that give nothing back,
               | yet more, they order workers around.
               | 
               | Ai can be a tool to replace exactly those that wish to
               | replace everyone else.
        
             | Minor49er wrote:
             | What do you mean by "protect content"?
        
             | Adverblessly wrote:
             | Abolish copyright and then you get to do the same with
             | theirs, level playing field ;)
        
         | jachee wrote:
         | > DRM for text and images
         | 
         | Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew. No! I hope that was sarcasm. DRM for
         | everything else so far is already a mistake. Do _not_ put that
         | evil on me, RickyBobby.
        
         | verdverm wrote:
         | I think you may mean a way to prove provenance, not DRM
         | 
         | There is good prior art happening in the software supply chain,
         | the problem for media content is that you want something like a
         | hardware signature created before software enters the fray
        
         | CaptainFever wrote:
         | > DRM for text and images
         | 
         | Please, no. We need less IP, not more.
        
       | KyleBerezin wrote:
       | When the Russo-Ukrainian war started, there was a glut of AI-
       | driven 'news' stories on youtube. They had some details correct,
       | but it seemed like a grab-bag of random events from the last
       | month rehashed as a new news story. The videos often had
       | thousands of views, despite the fact that much of the story was
       | fictitious. I tend to not watch anything that isn't at least
       | narrated by a human anymore. If someone didn't invest the time to
       | make it, it probably isn't worth investing the time to watch it.
        
         | jakubadamw wrote:
         | There were also deep fake videos of the Ukrainian president
         | going around meant to demoralise the Ukrainian society and the
         | Ukrainian army, specifically.
        
           | chx wrote:
           | Let's face it, the Zelenskyy deepfake at the time was
           | _hilarious_ https://i.imgur.com/XSRIBz2.jpg
        
       | DarkmSparks wrote:
       | What good is putting a "uses AI" on every single YT video
       | exactly?
        
         | Someone1234 wrote:
         | I was thinking the same. What does "use AI" even mean? For
         | example if you ask Bard for video theme ideas, did you "use
         | AI?"
         | 
         | And as time goes on this line is going to get even more murky
         | with AI creeping into software like Microsoft Word, video
         | editing suites, Photoshop, et al.
         | 
         | Based on the description it sounds like this has nothing to do
         | with "AI" and is more flag videos that artificially create
         | events that may not have occurred or as some would call it
         | "fake."
        
           | sonya-ai wrote:
           | AI is closer to becoming synonymous with fake :/
        
             | pixl97 wrote:
             | I mean artificial flavor is associated with fake flavor, so
             | it's not much of a surprise.
        
               | everfree wrote:
               | It's also a label that means nothing in practice, just
               | like "uses ai".
        
       | ChrisArchitect wrote:
       | Headline made me think they were going to 'detect' AI use and
       | display a label, but it's that creators will be required to
       | 'disclose' AI-use. Good luck.
        
         | dheera wrote:
         | "AI" is very hard to define.
         | 
         | Is noise cancellation AI? Is my use of GPT to reword one
         | sentence of a speech AI? Is a face-detection autofocus system
         | AI? Is automatically fixing my hair and removing a pimple or
         | two AI?
        
           | crazygringo wrote:
           | From the article it's much clearer.
           | 
           | Paraphrasing, it's using AI to produce
           | visual/audio/environmental deepfakes in a seemingly factual
           | context.
           | 
           | E.g. a comedy sketch doesn't need to be labeled, but if
           | you're putting words in a politician's mouth or adding 12
           | more rockets to a video that only had 2, then yeah.
           | 
           | In other words it's exclusively to combat misinformation and
           | disinformation.
        
       | mrtksn wrote:
       | YouTube is the last high-quality web 2.0 service for me, until I
       | steer away from my subscriptions.
       | 
       | If I wander a few videos too far away I start seeing videos about
       | reptilians controlling the world on channels with 8M subscribers
       | and they show "footage of people shapeshifting caught on camera",
       | completely fabricated alternative history, flat earthers
       | uncovering the grand conspiracy of the globalist etc.
       | 
       | I don't know how AI is worse than this. Also, apparently it's
       | based on the creator disclosing the use of AI in the creation
       | process. I guess the only "authentic" videos will be those of
       | shape shifting reptilians and proof videos that US never landed
       | on the moon. Kind of pointless.
        
         | rngname22 wrote:
         | If you could pick a curated video catalog, where a human
         | editorial team accepted or declined new video submissions at
         | upload time, and a human team decided what videos ought to be
         | featured / amplified more broadly to various user clusters,
         | would you prefer that to an open system where anyone could
         | upload and ML decided that some users enjoy seeing reptilian
         | conspiracies but a particular group of moderators/curators
         | weren't the arbitrators of truth and taste and moral purity?
         | 
         | (not a loaded question, and it is possible different companies
         | could emerge that would compete on the basis of their
         | taste/curation/moderation policies. also equally possible it
         | would be too costly/ unprofitable for the market to bear many
         | smaller competing entities).
         | 
         | I think perhaps there's a third option but we just haven't
         | really defined and figured it out yet. Some mixture of
         | crowdsourced taste/moderation plus top down taste/moderation
         | plus unfiltered UGC. Twitter's new user-generated Community
         | Notes might be a good example of a step in a new direction.
         | Social media is still relatively new.
        
           | kube-system wrote:
           | I think the root of the problem is presuming that
           | "engagement" is always good. Engagement can be for multiple
           | reasons, and the problem will be solved as soon as we can
           | figure out how to more qualitatively measure engagement.
        
           | mrtksn wrote:
           | I think I'm happy with the current system, I'm anti-
           | censorship and IMHO any content that doesn't harm someone
           | directly should never be deleted.
           | 
           | I am on the side of personal responsibility, that is, any
           | content should be associated with its creator, and it should
           | follow them. If someone posts completely ridiculous video,
           | that video should affect their personal lives. If they change
           | mind and apologize, that should be accepted too. That's
           | basically how real life relations work.
           | 
           | I just find the labeling as AI pointless.
        
           | swatcoder wrote:
           | > arbitrators of truth and taste and moral purity
           | 
           | I have _not once_ looked at TV network executives, publishing
           | house editors, museum curators, retail inventory buyers,
           | librarians, gallerists, or magazine editors as any of those
           | things. Why would somebody do so for video curation?
           | 
           | You don't need some complicated top down bottom up
           | crowdsourced ML blah blah blah. You just need to be able to
           | contextualize content to the curator. Which is what people
           | naturally do when there is an accountable curator.
           | 
           | Perhaps people who grew up recently only know content as
           | endless troves of machine-curated feeds with no
           | accountability or attributability, but that's actually just a
           | very ahistorical side effect of Section 230.
           | 
           | Every other way of experiencing media has always been through
           | some curated context, with a specific entity you can point at
           | as the responsible curator, and through which you color your
           | experience of the content.
           | 
           | That's not to say people couldn't be misled in that model as
           | well, but this whole "curators are the arbiter of truth"
           | thing has no real or historical ground. Explicit curation
           | actually offers the very opposite thing: recognizable,
           | accountable, obvious context.
        
         | read_if_gay_ wrote:
         | > videos about reptilians controlling the world on channels
         | with 8M subscribers
         | 
         | Link?
        
           | mrtksn wrote:
           | For example, a shapeshifter video:
           | https://youtu.be/9UCLykdar_k?si=ScpO4zcT99K0Ryf_
        
         | gosub100 wrote:
         | I watch about 20-30m per day of youtube (not counting listening
         | to videos to put me to sleep) and I've never encountered this.
         | The worst I have seen is cheap knockoff channels with text-to-
         | speech bot voices, which I suspect are just reading pirated
         | textbooks to stock footage. I dislike people doing that, but
         | there was nothing dubious about the content itself.
         | 
         | One thing I'm very cautious about is clicking on rage-bait
         | links from other people. My best friend likes watching dramatic
         | cop-encounters and shares them with me, but I'm always hesitant
         | to click because I'm afraid it will start suggesting them
         | without ability to stop. I can't say if this will work for you,
         | but I aggressively use the "don't show me this" and "tell us
         | why: I don't like the video". I rarely use the "don't recommend
         | channel" (but wouldn't hesitate to use it if I ever got
         | suggested pseudoscience or fake-news bs).
        
           | hutzlibu wrote:
           | " but I'm always hesitant to click because I'm afraid it will
           | start suggesting them without ability to stop."
           | 
           | The only workaround I know of, is using incoknito tabs/new
           | profiles/different account. It should be supported out of the
           | box, to watch a video with the option to not include that
           | into your profile.
           | 
           | (my account is messed up beyound hope, for not doing this, I
           | can only start a new one, but I don't use yt that much
           | anyway)
        
       | pphysch wrote:
       | "USDA Organic" labels for digital content, this will be a bigger
       | and bigger thing.
        
       | sebastiennight wrote:
       | People have been asking where the line is.
       | 
       | - I think a video with a synthetic actor (even when it's cloning
       | a human) is synthetic and should be labeled as such, whatever the
       | provenance of the script
       | 
       | - I think a video with a human actor, but an AI-written script
       | could also be labeled. The line is blurrier there for me, since
       | some folks have very elaborate prompts which basically amount to
       | "here's my first draft, make it better". But having a straight-up
       | rule is still good. False positives are better than false
       | negatives here.
       | 
       | - And then there's the issue of AI-generated translations (which
       | is what we do at my startup[1] ). I do believe it's fair for
       | viewers to have those tagged as well. And to be able to track
       | provenance to avoid deepfakes.
       | 
       | [1] https://www.onetake.ai
        
         | dheera wrote:
         | I think one thing I look forward to is editing my voice to
         | sound different. The words and intonation can be kept, just
         | make me sound like a different person. I hate listening to
         | recordings of myself, and that's literally the only thing
         | stopping me from becoming a Youtube creator. I don't know
         | whether that would be classified as "AI".
        
         | thomastjeffery wrote:
         | The line is wherever content creators draw it:
         | 
         | > YouTube will...require that creators disclose the use of AI
         | in a video
        
         | gosub100 wrote:
         | I'm not sure if TTS is included in your first point, or if you
         | meant a fake visual likeness. But I really want to see TTS
         | labelled because it's so good now a lot of people don't know
         | they are listening to a robot (and it's only going to get
         | better). I know a lot of replies would say "well, what's the
         | harm then?" and that's the insidious thing about A.I. is there
         | isn't usually _direct harm_ , but I think people have a right
         | to know they are living in a fake world and be free to opt in
         | if they wish.
         | 
         | On many of the fake channels, I see comments praising the fake
         | actor for reading the stolen academic material (and ironically
         | many of these comments are likely fake, too!).
        
           | Dylan16807 wrote:
           | Is having a random guy on fiverr read a script without
           | further context significantly less "fake" than TTS?
        
             | MattRix wrote:
             | Yes.
        
       | Animats wrote:
       | Will this be applied retroactively to most Hollywood output since
       | Jurassic Park?
        
       | thomastjeffery wrote:
       | This is a bandage, not a cure.
       | 
       | It won't work: Truth can only be healed with light.
        
       | TheGRS wrote:
       | I'm not on Youtube as much as the pandemic today, I feel like
       | that was my peak watching of various content creators who pump
       | out decent content regularly. But if I jump on Youtube today and
       | half of my recommended feed becomes listed as AI, I'll likely
       | stop going there altogether.
       | 
       | If I start going on Youtube and watch a bunch of content and my
       | spidey-sense goes off that a lot of these videos are AI-generated
       | (without labels), I'll likely stop going there altogether as
       | well.
       | 
       | And this is not a direct bash on AI-generated content. I think
       | the tech is going to be immensely helpful for all sorts of stuff,
       | including youtube video content creation, but I'm dreading this
       | early adoption period where people pump out low quality junk. I'd
       | rather just avoid it and do something else. I'm sure Youtube is
       | aware of this and is trying to figure out how to control the
       | problem, but the labels just aren't going to help me continue to
       | go to Youtube.
       | 
       | Tough problem, I don't envy the folks at Youtube trying to figure
       | this pickle out.
        
       | j45 wrote:
       | This will be good to identify and eliminate the easiest and
       | laziest uses of AI to do the new form of content farms.
       | 
       | What might remain hard?
       | 
       | Hiring professional voiceover actors, and still doing actual
       | video editing instead of rendering.
        
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       (page generated 2023-11-14 23:00 UTC)