YouTube's Sneaky AI 'Experiment': Is Social Media Embracing AI-Generated Content? (yahoo.com)
(Sunday August 24, 2025 @03:34AM (EditorDavid)
from the fake-friends dept.)
- Reference: 0178836110
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/08/23/0836256/youtubes-sneaky-ai-experiment-is-social-media-embracing-ai-generated-content
- Source link: https://ca.news.yahoo.com/youtube-sneaky-ai-experiment-183736361.html
The Atlantic reports some YouTube users noticed their uploaded videos have since " [1]been subtly augmented, their appearance changing without their creators doing anything..."
"For creators who want to differentiate themselves from the new synthetic content, YouTube seems interested in making the job harder."
> When I asked Google, YouTube's parent company, about what's happening to these videos, the spokesperson Allison Toh wrote, "We're running an experiment on select YouTube Shorts that uses image enhancement technology to sharpen content. These enhancements are not done with generative AI." But this is a tricky statement: "Generative AI" has no strict technical definition, and "image enhancement technology" could be anything. I asked for more detail about which technologies are being employed, and to what end. Toh said YouTube is "using traditional machine learning to unblur, denoise, and improve clarity in videos," she told me. (It's unknown whether the modified videos are being shown to all users or just some; tech companies will sometimes run limited tests of new features.)
>
> While running this experiment, YouTube has also been encouraging people to create and post AI-generated short videos using a [2]recently launched suite of tools that allow users to animate still photos and add effects "like swimming underwater, twinning with a lookalike sibling, and more." YouTube didn't tell me what motivated its experiment, but some people suspect that it has to do with creating a more uniform aesthetic across the platform. As one YouTube commenter [3]wrote : "They're training us, the audience, to get used to the AI look and eventually view it as normal."
>
> Google isn't the only company rushing to mix AI-generated content into its platforms. Meta encourages users to create and publish their own AI chatbots on Facebook and Instagram using the company's " [4]AI Studio " tool. Last December, Meta's vice president of product for generative AI [5]told the Financial Times that "we expect these AIs to actually, over time, exist on our platforms, kind of in the same way that [human] accounts do...."
>
> This is an odd turn for "social" media to take. Platforms that are supposedly based on the idea of connecting people with one another, or at least sharing experiences and performances — YouTube's slogan until 2013 was "Broadcast Yourself" — now seem focused on getting us to consume impersonal, algorithmic gruel.
[1] https://ca.news.yahoo.com/youtube-sneaky-ai-experiment-183736361.html
[2] https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/new-shorts-creation-tools-2025/
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86nhP8tvbLY&lc=UgwvTpYE-29aJN7lypp4AaABAg
[4] https://aistudio.instagram.com/policies/
[5] https://www.ft.com/content/91183cbb-50f9-464a-9d2e-96063825bfcf
"For creators who want to differentiate themselves from the new synthetic content, YouTube seems interested in making the job harder."
> When I asked Google, YouTube's parent company, about what's happening to these videos, the spokesperson Allison Toh wrote, "We're running an experiment on select YouTube Shorts that uses image enhancement technology to sharpen content. These enhancements are not done with generative AI." But this is a tricky statement: "Generative AI" has no strict technical definition, and "image enhancement technology" could be anything. I asked for more detail about which technologies are being employed, and to what end. Toh said YouTube is "using traditional machine learning to unblur, denoise, and improve clarity in videos," she told me. (It's unknown whether the modified videos are being shown to all users or just some; tech companies will sometimes run limited tests of new features.)
>
> While running this experiment, YouTube has also been encouraging people to create and post AI-generated short videos using a [2]recently launched suite of tools that allow users to animate still photos and add effects "like swimming underwater, twinning with a lookalike sibling, and more." YouTube didn't tell me what motivated its experiment, but some people suspect that it has to do with creating a more uniform aesthetic across the platform. As one YouTube commenter [3]wrote : "They're training us, the audience, to get used to the AI look and eventually view it as normal."
>
> Google isn't the only company rushing to mix AI-generated content into its platforms. Meta encourages users to create and publish their own AI chatbots on Facebook and Instagram using the company's " [4]AI Studio " tool. Last December, Meta's vice president of product for generative AI [5]told the Financial Times that "we expect these AIs to actually, over time, exist on our platforms, kind of in the same way that [human] accounts do...."
>
> This is an odd turn for "social" media to take. Platforms that are supposedly based on the idea of connecting people with one another, or at least sharing experiences and performances — YouTube's slogan until 2013 was "Broadcast Yourself" — now seem focused on getting us to consume impersonal, algorithmic gruel.
[1] https://ca.news.yahoo.com/youtube-sneaky-ai-experiment-183736361.html
[2] https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/new-shorts-creation-tools-2025/
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86nhP8tvbLY&lc=UgwvTpYE-29aJN7lypp4AaABAg
[4] https://aistudio.instagram.com/policies/
[5] https://www.ft.com/content/91183cbb-50f9-464a-9d2e-96063825bfcf
Porn (Score:1)
by Paradise Pete ( 33184 )
As usual, porn will drive acceptance. Within a couple of years 80% of porn will be AI. (This might turn out to be a wildly conservative estimate)
A whole crop of "influencers" and porn "stars" will soon be out of the business.
Re: (Score:2)
by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 )
> Within a couple of years 80% of porn will be AI.
I agree, but for porn, it usually looks better when softened with a slight blur. Who wants to see pimples?
YouTube is sharpening images.
> A whole crop of "influencers" and porn "stars" will soon be out of the business.
Fine with me.
Maybe they are tring to use "AI" to compress video (Score:2)
by havana9 ( 101033 )
I've seen some of these AI videos and the sensation was that I was looking to a VHS tape that was upscaled and enhanced too look native HD. Especially the flattened skin tones of faces looks like it.
So maybe they are trying an aggressive compression and using a complex upscaling system.
Feh (Score:1)
Best interpretation: They've finally run out of space and are forcing harsher compression.
My interpretation: Sneaky way to individually watermark every single video stream and make archival copies constantly degrade more like it. It attacks copying by making it impossible to truly copy.