YouTube secretly tested AI video enhancement without notifying creators
(arstechnica.com)
from gedaliyah@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 26 Aug 02:58
https://lemmy.world/post/35019144
from gedaliyah@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 26 Aug 02:58
https://lemmy.world/post/35019144
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.
threaded - newest
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.
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.
RIP MLG videos
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)
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.
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.
face smoothing is a side effect of AI upscaling, i doubt that was the goal.
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.
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.
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.
Almost every TV has this built in too. Upscaling is not what people are complaining about.
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!
Heeeellll yeah dude. You know what, I didn’t have the full picture, I do like how you got here.
Next steps. Old PC that’s too slow? Fuuuuck Roku, theyre selling your data anyway. Look up how to throw a little shitter Linux distro on there, get an adapter for your TV and a cheap mini keyboard and remote. The world is your oyster.
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?
Public now. Secretive at the time.
It’s a public facing platform.
So by that logic, everything they do is public, whether they talk about it or not?
No. But the thing we’re talking about is. It’s a lot like farting in an elevator with just one other person and trying to convince them they did it. You both know who did it and what they did pretty quickly.
More like you’ve gotten in the elevator fart-free with someone many times before, but then they planned to fart next time without telling you. We all know who did it, the problem is that the other person wasn’t aware that what happens in that elevator ride was going to change because they kept it a secret until the doors shut, and then there was no way out
Your two braincells are misfiring, bud.
"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
If you give a letter to a postman, and the recipient asks why you put “P.S: I love you” on an official piece of documentation, your first thought wouldn’t be “that damn postman, opening my mail to try and enhance it”.
The same is true for YouTube. People have been uploading videos for decades with them ending up on the platform the way they are uploaded, so it stands to reason that longtime users would expect this behaviour to continue, especially if there have been no Comms around any changes.
Of course Google isn’t to be trusted, and anyone trusting YouTube to be ethical clearly isn’t paying attention to anything. But that doesn’t change the fact that youtube have intentionally hidden this change from their user base. Sure, the result was public facing, but the cause was kept secret; and that’s the nuance you’re overlooking.
There’s definitely a middle ground somewhere between both of our perspectives. I didn’t write it out, but you did bring up a great point regarding them notoriously being a shitty company to the people they rely on for income as well as the people they exploit for income, the creators and viewers respectively.
I mean on a very strict technicality, I suppose part of this is secretive, but I still think there’s a better word out there for it. There’s absolutely no way they thought they could alter many many videos and it not be caught. I don’t think their intent was secretive. It has the same feel as lying by omission. Not quite a lie but could technically be classified as one.
I’m really tired, and I got to get to bed. If you’re willing to continue tomorrow I’d be down.
Yeah I can appreciate that take mate. The level of audacity they would need to think something like this wouldn’t be noticed is almost unimaginable. Lying by omission does feel like the best comparison to make regarding this.
Rest easy friend; there will be plenty more corporate nonsense for us all to jawdrop over tomorrow!
That you are not wrong about one bit lmao. We live in an evil cartoon
Hidden from view? No. Hidden from knowledge of it being done? Yes, therefore it was done in secret.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study
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?
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?
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.
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”