5 ms·

A new YouTube app/player, for my kids. It allows us to control the algorithm. It’s all LLM translating to YouTube search queries under the hood. Visually it

by aantix 2y ago

A new YouTube app/player, for my kids. It allows us to control the algorithm. It’s all LLM translating to YouTube search queries under the hood. Visually it looks the same. The suggested videos come from predefined buckets on topics they love. E.g. 33% fun math, 33% DIY engineering, 33% creative activities. Video recommendations that have a banned word in the title/desc don't get displayed e.g. MrBeast, anything with Minecraft in it, never gets surfaced. For anyone interested in using it, send me an email. jim.jones1@gmail.com

aantix 2y ago
YouTube recommendations for kids shouldn't be driven by engagement (e.g. "oh, you watched 20 hours of MrBeast videos. You probably need another hour.") If my kid watches an hour of unboxing toy videos, I shouldn't have to try and disable 3,000 channels of toy unboxings in an effort for that topic to never surface again. The thumbs down button essentially has zero effect. https://www.wired.com/story/youtube-dislike-button-mozilla-research/ https://www.wired.com/story/youtube-dislike-button-mozilla-r... Diversity of thought and topic is much more critical when they are kids.
- aantix 2y ago
  Todd Beaupré, the product lead for the YouTube homepage, says "We love exploration, have multiple teams dedicated to it." But from my kids' viewing habits, I don't see it. The algorithm is seems super narrowly focused. https://x.com/hitsman/status/1845168160691061121 https://x.com/hitsman/status/1845168160691061121 Andrej Karpathy commented on the narrowness of the algorithm just the other day. https://x.com/karpathy/status/1844449291282284925 https://x.com/karpathy/status/1844449291282284925
- josephg 2y ago
  I’d go further and say nobody should be subjected to this stuff. Engagement is a euphemism for addiction. Self improving addiction machines are a horrible idea. They’re actively bad for people and society for a laundry list of reasons. Anyone who works on this stuff should be ashamed of yourselves. You’re modern day cigarette companies.
  - aantix 2y ago
    What do you feel is an appropriate and ethical way to surface content? How would you go about writing the recommendation algorithm?
    - Zak 2y ago
      One thing I would like to see is an algorithm based on expressed rather than revealed preferences. De-jargoned, that means clicking the like button means I want to see more things like that, and the dislike button means I don't want to see things like that. If I watched something all the way through, but clicked the dislike button, that means I don't want to see things that produced a similar response from people who tend to react the way I do. This kind of algorithm is not going to increase watch time over the short term, and might not over the long term either, which makes it unlikely to be adopted by any for-profit service.
    - the_sleaze_ 2y ago
      Remove the personalization aspect. "The algorithm" was different in the early 2000's and all of our lives were richer for it. Before Facebook publicly embedded psychologists into the development teams and before the goal was more and more attention. The internet used to be great.
    - josephg 2y ago
      > How would you go about writing the recommendation algorithm? I probably wouldn’t. Twitter, YouTube and Facebook were all invented before recommendation algorithms existed, and they worked great. Reddit still doesn’t use a recommendation algorithm. Would they make less money without this stuff? Yeah, probably. But I think that’s a good deal for humanity. I was really struck in The Social Dilemma how at the end they asked devs if they’d let their children use the platforms they’ve made. People interviewed overwhelmingly said no. If that’s the case, you know it’s bad. Just stop.
equasar 2y ago
This is very interesting. I would paid for something like that, that could work for any popular video social media platform.
- aantix 2y ago
  Email me, jim.jones1@gmail.com Would love your input.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
timenotwasted 2y ago
As a parent with a couple of kids about to be the age of wanting to watch YT I'm very interested in this!
- aantix 2y ago
  Please email me, I need testers. jim.jones1@gmail.com
android521 2y ago
it would be great if this project is open source
dngit 2y ago
Would an app like this work with TV? Would be super cool if it would.
- aantix 2y ago
  No TV support. iOS and Android.
  - worthless-trash 2y ago
    So...android tv .
krish888 2y ago
sent you mail, I would love to be associated with this project. I was looking for a solution for some time, at least one which allows to restrict the content from the main youtube. Youtube kids app they have is a joke.
lemming 2y ago
For anyone wanting interesting YT videos for their kids (and not wanting to take anything away from OP's project), I highly highly recommend thekidshouldseethis.com. It's basically a curated stream of cool videos, and I would feel totally safe letting my daughter browse it alone (she never does because we usually watch them together, but the curation is that good). Videos on all sorts of topics, and good enough to be really entertaining for both kids and adults - I can spend an evening there easily. They also have a really fantastic gift guide.
- james-bcn 2y ago
  That a wonderful resource, thank you!
- andrepd 2y ago
  Absolutely amazing. Bookmarked, gonna be very useful in 5 or 10 years ahahah On the other hand, it's so soul-crushingly depressing to contemplate how most youtube content targeted at kids is such brain-addling garbage fucking up their psyche in all sorts of ways, all for the sake of ad impressions... If there's a place for the expression "late capitalism" this has to be it
  - lemming 2y ago
    Oh, if you think that is bad, wait until you're looking for educational apps for them. What a total hot mess in a sector which should by rights be amazing. Fortunately this is one of the killer apps of LLMs IMO - I have built multiple small tools to help educate our daughter, like this guy: https://x.com/random_walker/status/1848388462782673340 https://x.com/random_walker/status/1848388462782673340
- Quiark 2y ago
  I was just watching with my young kids YT videos about casting metals into objects and how steel is made, sometimes modernity is great
- username135 2y ago
  Bookmarked. Thanks
mpulztracker 2y ago
This is a great idea! Recommendation algos are weaponized against kids and would be great to have some way of managing it. There is a similar problem with movies as well. It is hard to know whether a movie is appropriate for a child e.g. some kind of violence may be acceptable but not adult themes. So marking a movie PG-13 for example doesn't help much. There are some crowd-sourced solutions to this right now such as https://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews https://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews But LLMs could really help automate this
kortilla 2y ago
Is there a version for adults? Something that keeps you from getting pulled down engagement bait rabbit holes would be great. I don’t want it to be overly focused on children’s education though.
- quailfarmer 2y ago
  I disabled all suggested content on my YouTube account. My “home” page shows as totally blank. Only the subscription tab works, or explicitly searching. You still get recommended “related videos” but it helps stay focused on the things you’ve chosen to see.
  - vultour 2y ago
    I exlusively watch youtube videos from my homepage and from the related videos section. You can train the YouTube algorithm to not feed you garbage, most of the videos on my homepage are 30+ minutes long educational content. I just wish you could permanently hide the Shorts section (I guess ublock can do this), so that I could see more than 6 at a time. I also never subscribe to any channels, watching a few videos pretty much guarantees they will pop up on the homepage every once in a while.
- Rastonbury 2y ago
  Maybe Dearrow clickbait remover https://dearrow.ajay.app/ https://dearrow.ajay.app/

by aantix 2y ago

aantix 2y ago

YouTube recommendations for kids shouldn't be driven by engagement (e.g. "oh, you watched 20 hours of MrBeast videos. You probably need another hour.") If my kid watches an hour of unboxing toy videos, I shouldn't have to try and disable 3,000 channels of toy unboxings in an effort for that topic to never surface again. The thumbs down button essentially has zero effect. https://www.wired.com/story/youtube-dislike-button-mozilla-research/ https://www.wired.com/story/youtube-dislike-button-mozilla-r... Diversity of thought and topic is much more critical when they are kids.

aantix 2y ago
Todd Beaupré, the product lead for the YouTube homepage, says "We love exploration, have multiple teams dedicated to it." But from my kids' viewing habits, I don't see it. The algorithm is seems super narrowly focused. https://x.com/hitsman/status/1845168160691061121 https://x.com/hitsman/status/1845168160691061121 Andrej Karpathy commented on the narrowness of the algorithm just the other day. https://x.com/karpathy/status/1844449291282284925 https://x.com/karpathy/status/1844449291282284925
josephg 2y ago
I’d go further and say nobody should be subjected to this stuff. Engagement is a euphemism for addiction. Self improving addiction machines are a horrible idea. They’re actively bad for people and society for a laundry list of reasons. Anyone who works on this stuff should be ashamed of yourselves. You’re modern day cigarette companies.
- aantix 2y ago
  What do you feel is an appropriate and ethical way to surface content? How would you go about writing the recommendation algorithm?
  - Zak 2y ago
    One thing I would like to see is an algorithm based on expressed rather than revealed preferences. De-jargoned, that means clicking the like button means I want to see more things like that, and the dislike button means I don't want to see things like that. If I watched something all the way through, but clicked the dislike button, that means I don't want to see things that produced a similar response from people who tend to react the way I do. This kind of algorithm is not going to increase watch time over the short term, and might not over the long term either, which makes it unlikely to be adopted by any for-profit service.
  - the_sleaze_ 2y ago
    Remove the personalization aspect. "The algorithm" was different in the early 2000's and all of our lives were richer for it. Before Facebook publicly embedded psychologists into the development teams and before the goal was more and more attention. The internet used to be great.
  - josephg 2y ago
    > How would you go about writing the recommendation algorithm? I probably wouldn’t. Twitter, YouTube and Facebook were all invented before recommendation algorithms existed, and they worked great. Reddit still doesn’t use a recommendation algorithm. Would they make less money without this stuff? Yeah, probably. But I think that’s a good deal for humanity. I was really struck in The Social Dilemma how at the end they asked devs if they’d let their children use the platforms they’ve made. People interviewed overwhelmingly said no. If that’s the case, you know it’s bad. Just stop.

equasar 2y ago

This is very interesting. I would paid for something like that, that could work for any popular video social media platform.

aantix 2y ago
Email me, jim.jones1@gmail.com Would love your input.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

timenotwasted 2y ago

As a parent with a couple of kids about to be the age of wanting to watch YT I'm very interested in this!

aantix 2y ago
Please email me, I need testers. jim.jones1@gmail.com

android521 2y ago

it would be great if this project is open source

dngit 2y ago

Would an app like this work with TV? Would be super cool if it would.

aantix 2y ago
No TV support. iOS and Android.
- worthless-trash 2y ago
  So...android tv .

krish888 2y ago

sent you mail, I would love to be associated with this project. I was looking for a solution for some time, at least one which allows to restrict the content from the main youtube. Youtube kids app they have is a joke.

lemming 2y ago

For anyone wanting interesting YT videos for their kids (and not wanting to take anything away from OP's project), I highly highly recommend thekidshouldseethis.com. It's basically a curated stream of cool videos, and I would feel totally safe letting my daughter browse it alone (she never does because we usually watch them together, but the curation is that good). Videos on all sorts of topics, and good enough to be really entertaining for both kids and adults - I can spend an evening there easily. They also have a really fantastic gift guide.

james-bcn 2y ago
That a wonderful resource, thank you!
andrepd 2y ago
Absolutely amazing. Bookmarked, gonna be very useful in 5 or 10 years ahahah On the other hand, it's so soul-crushingly depressing to contemplate how most youtube content targeted at kids is such brain-addling garbage fucking up their psyche in all sorts of ways, all for the sake of ad impressions... If there's a place for the expression "late capitalism" this has to be it
- lemming 2y ago
  Oh, if you think that is bad, wait until you're looking for educational apps for them. What a total hot mess in a sector which should by rights be amazing. Fortunately this is one of the killer apps of LLMs IMO - I have built multiple small tools to help educate our daughter, like this guy: https://x.com/random_walker/status/1848388462782673340 https://x.com/random_walker/status/1848388462782673340
Quiark 2y ago
I was just watching with my young kids YT videos about casting metals into objects and how steel is made, sometimes modernity is great
username135 2y ago
Bookmarked. Thanks

mpulztracker 2y ago

This is a great idea! Recommendation algos are weaponized against kids and would be great to have some way of managing it. There is a similar problem with movies as well. It is hard to know whether a movie is appropriate for a child e.g. some kind of violence may be acceptable but not adult themes. So marking a movie PG-13 for example doesn't help much. There are some crowd-sourced solutions to this right now such as https://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews https://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews But LLMs could really help automate this

kortilla 2y ago

Is there a version for adults? Something that keeps you from getting pulled down engagement bait rabbit holes would be great. I don’t want it to be overly focused on children’s education though.

quailfarmer 2y ago
I disabled all suggested content on my YouTube account. My “home” page shows as totally blank. Only the subscription tab works, or explicitly searching. You still get recommended “related videos” but it helps stay focused on the things you’ve chosen to see.
- vultour 2y ago
  I exlusively watch youtube videos from my homepage and from the related videos section. You can train the YouTube algorithm to not feed you garbage, most of the videos on my homepage are 30+ minutes long educational content. I just wish you could permanently hide the Shorts section (I guess ublock can do this), so that I could see more than 6 at a time. I also never subscribe to any channels, watching a few videos pretty much guarantees they will pop up on the homepage every once in a while.
Rastonbury 2y ago
Maybe Dearrow clickbait remover https://dearrow.ajay.app/ https://dearrow.ajay.app/