5 ms·

Google is using YouTube videos to train its AI video generator

34 points by rntn 1y ago

krunck 1y ago
... because Youtube videos meet some minimum level of content quality?
- add-sub-mul-div 1y ago
  If low quality influencer garbage is what people are watching, they'll be happy to generate more of it and I don't think they'll lose sleep about the quality.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- adzm 1y ago
  There is just so much of it, on so many different topics. Especially esoteric things that aren't popular "influencer" things that everyone is going to think of initially.
- leumon 1y ago
  Just like for llms for the base model you need quantity not quality. It just needs to learn how to correctly predict the next frame.
- kube-system 1y ago
  Most of it is better than this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQr4Xklqzw8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQr4Xklqzw8
greatgib 1y ago
It kind of does make sense, like a Library would use the books at its disposal. But what is not normal is that they will easily block, ban and sue you if you try to do the same, like if the catalog of content was belonging to them.
- echoangle 1y ago
  Does it not? Do you not give those rights to YouTube once you upload a video?
  - throwaway29843 1y ago
    Not all YouTube videos are uploaded by their rightholders though. There's plenty of stuff reuploaded from other platforms, which Google is feeding into their AI indiscriminately.
- kube-system 1y ago
  > It kind of does make sense, like a Library would use the books at its disposal. Libraries don't really "use" books to produce anything, except to support accessibility like translations or indexing. Their lending of books is under the first-sale doctrine, which wouldn't be applicable to YouTube videos streamed under license. > But what is not normal is that they will easily block, ban and sue you if you try to do the same, like if the catalog of content was belonging to them. Because they do have rights to the content. All of the content on YouTube has been licensed to YouTube, and the licensor has assigned some rights to them.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
superkuh 1y ago
Additionally, no one blocks googlebot even though it's being used just as much for LLM/etc AI training as any web spider out there. Too big to block. Too big to not use.
paxys 1y ago
Well, no shit. Remember when OpenAI's CTO was asked to confirm that they don't use YouTube to train Sora and she evaded the question...? Everyone is training on everything they can get their hands on, period.
- cavisne 1y ago
  Hilariously there was a story how Google could not train on Youtube data due to their TOS, so they changed it for new videos. Meanwhile everyone else was scraping Youtube as much as they liked and training on it.
flokie 1y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
kunzhi 1y ago
Reading this article I couldn’t help but remember the Key & Peele skit about joke theft - “high on potenuse.” All this AI training feels similar to me on some level. Yeah, it’s “just making a copy” on the other hand the person who originated the idea doesn’t get to participate in the success. Life is hard, but at least on the other hand, it’s also unfair.
pier25 1y ago
To no one's surprise. If you're not the customer you're the product.
- emodendroket 1y ago
  I think that phrase ought to be retired simply because even if you are paying money you often still are “the product.”
  - kube-system 1y ago
    If you're paying money, you still might not be a company's real customer: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1093781/distribution-of-googles-revenues-by-segment/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1093781/distribution-of-...
    - emodendroket 1y ago
      I don’t think it’s even right to think that there’s one “real” customer and one “fake” one really. It seems like an oversimplified model that doesn’t accurately describe how anybody operates besides a mom-and-pop.
      - kube-system 1y ago
        The "unsimple" answer is: 1. if you don't have leverage with your vendors, they will not bend over backwards for you 2. companies are not incentivized to respond to complaints with no revenue at risk (e.g. you're going to use youtube anyway)
  - pier25 1y ago
    Absolutely. See TVs for example. Price has gone down because they sell the data of what you're watching.
    - techjamie 1y ago
      Drop tens of thousands on a new vehicle at a stealership and you'll get sketchy companies offering warranties on your exact vehicle within a week and then forever-more afterwards. The way I understand it, usually either the dealership, the software they take your information in, or both typically sell off your data after the sale. Also I get calls and letters from places asking to buy a vehicle I haven't owned since 2018 regularly.
bgwalter 1y ago
Here is a free business idea: Create an agentic "AI" video watcher. "AI" YouTube creators can register with the service, which will then watch their videos, will generate click-throughs to the advertisers and interact with the advertiser's web pages. The service is financed by profit sharing. This streamlines video watching, which humans are notoriously slow at. It could lead to efficiency gains in video and ad watching that are practically unlimited.
- gauku 1y ago
  Almost sure that's a tongue-in-cheek response. Right?
  - bgwalter 1y ago
    Yes! I'm pretty sure though that given the current hype someone can come up with an elaborate legal and moral justification for increasing video watching efficiency.
    - add-sub-mul-div 1y ago
      Be Facebook and call it pivot-to-video.
- kube-system 1y ago
  I'm guessing that is a facetious response, but in case it isn't: this is just plain old fraud.
  - lovich 1y ago
    Sounds like you just need to execute on it fast enough that the government cant respond before youre too big to fight. standard strategy
    - kube-system 1y ago
      Not really. Click fraud isn't anything new, it has existed for decades, and there are many ways that it can be (and currently is) mitigated privately. The most common way is to ban, shadowban, or demonetize the offender. And if that doesn't work you can always be held civilly liable. Contracting with others to commit fraud and violate contracts is not a good business idea even if you stay off the government's radar.
JohnFen 1y ago
genAI videos are already making YouTube worse than it was, and that trend is only starting. Maybe that, plus Google using user videos in this way, will finally allow one of their competitors to gain more traction.
hagbard_c 1y ago
This comes as no surprise as I suspect many if not most other 'AI video generator' projects are being fed 'content' from Youtube, Vimeo, Rumble and any and all other accessible video sites - where else would they get a wide spectrum of video material to train on?

34 points by rntn 1y ago

krunck 1y ago

... because Youtube videos meet some minimum level of content quality?

add-sub-mul-div 1y ago
If low quality influencer garbage is what people are watching, they'll be happy to generate more of it and I don't think they'll lose sleep about the quality.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
adzm 1y ago
There is just so much of it, on so many different topics. Especially esoteric things that aren't popular "influencer" things that everyone is going to think of initially.
leumon 1y ago
Just like for llms for the base model you need quantity not quality. It just needs to learn how to correctly predict the next frame.
kube-system 1y ago
Most of it is better than this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQr4Xklqzw8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQr4Xklqzw8

greatgib 1y ago

It kind of does make sense, like a Library would use the books at its disposal. But what is not normal is that they will easily block, ban and sue you if you try to do the same, like if the catalog of content was belonging to them.

echoangle 1y ago
Does it not? Do you not give those rights to YouTube once you upload a video?
- throwaway29843 1y ago
  Not all YouTube videos are uploaded by their rightholders though. There's plenty of stuff reuploaded from other platforms, which Google is feeding into their AI indiscriminately.
kube-system 1y ago
> It kind of does make sense, like a Library would use the books at its disposal. Libraries don't really "use" books to produce anything, except to support accessibility like translations or indexing. Their lending of books is under the first-sale doctrine, which wouldn't be applicable to YouTube videos streamed under license. > But what is not normal is that they will easily block, ban and sue you if you try to do the same, like if the catalog of content was belonging to them. Because they do have rights to the content. All of the content on YouTube has been licensed to YouTube, and the licensor has assigned some rights to them.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

superkuh 1y ago

Additionally, no one blocks googlebot even though it's being used just as much for LLM/etc AI training as any web spider out there. Too big to block. Too big to not use.

paxys 1y ago

Well, no shit. Remember when OpenAI's CTO was asked to confirm that they don't use YouTube to train Sora and she evaded the question...? Everyone is training on everything they can get their hands on, period.

cavisne 1y ago
Hilariously there was a story how Google could not train on Youtube data due to their TOS, so they changed it for new videos. Meanwhile everyone else was scraping Youtube as much as they liked and training on it.

flokie 1y ago

[flagged]

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

kunzhi 1y ago

Reading this article I couldn’t help but remember the Key & Peele skit about joke theft - “high on potenuse.” All this AI training feels similar to me on some level. Yeah, it’s “just making a copy” on the other hand the person who originated the idea doesn’t get to participate in the success. Life is hard, but at least on the other hand, it’s also unfair.

pier25 1y ago

To no one's surprise. If you're not the customer you're the product.

emodendroket 1y ago
I think that phrase ought to be retired simply because even if you are paying money you often still are “the product.”
- kube-system 1y ago
  If you're paying money, you still might not be a company's real customer: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1093781/distribution-of-googles-revenues-by-segment/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1093781/distribution-of-...
  - emodendroket 1y ago
    I don’t think it’s even right to think that there’s one “real” customer and one “fake” one really. It seems like an oversimplified model that doesn’t accurately describe how anybody operates besides a mom-and-pop.
    - kube-system 1y ago
      The "unsimple" answer is: 1. if you don't have leverage with your vendors, they will not bend over backwards for you 2. companies are not incentivized to respond to complaints with no revenue at risk (e.g. you're going to use youtube anyway)
- pier25 1y ago
  Absolutely. See TVs for example. Price has gone down because they sell the data of what you're watching.
  - techjamie 1y ago
    Drop tens of thousands on a new vehicle at a stealership and you'll get sketchy companies offering warranties on your exact vehicle within a week and then forever-more afterwards. The way I understand it, usually either the dealership, the software they take your information in, or both typically sell off your data after the sale. Also I get calls and letters from places asking to buy a vehicle I haven't owned since 2018 regularly.

bgwalter 1y ago

Here is a free business idea: Create an agentic "AI" video watcher. "AI" YouTube creators can register with the service, which will then watch their videos, will generate click-throughs to the advertisers and interact with the advertiser's web pages. The service is financed by profit sharing. This streamlines video watching, which humans are notoriously slow at. It could lead to efficiency gains in video and ad watching that are practically unlimited.

gauku 1y ago
Almost sure that's a tongue-in-cheek response. Right?
- bgwalter 1y ago
  Yes! I'm pretty sure though that given the current hype someone can come up with an elaborate legal and moral justification for increasing video watching efficiency.
  - add-sub-mul-div 1y ago
    Be Facebook and call it pivot-to-video.
kube-system 1y ago
I'm guessing that is a facetious response, but in case it isn't: this is just plain old fraud.
- lovich 1y ago
  Sounds like you just need to execute on it fast enough that the government cant respond before youre too big to fight. standard strategy
  - kube-system 1y ago
    Not really. Click fraud isn't anything new, it has existed for decades, and there are many ways that it can be (and currently is) mitigated privately. The most common way is to ban, shadowban, or demonetize the offender. And if that doesn't work you can always be held civilly liable. Contracting with others to commit fraud and violate contracts is not a good business idea even if you stay off the government's radar.

JohnFen 1y ago

genAI videos are already making YouTube worse than it was, and that trend is only starting. Maybe that, plus Google using user videos in this way, will finally allow one of their competitors to gain more traction.

hagbard_c 1y ago

This comes as no surprise as I suspect many if not most other 'AI video generator' projects are being fed 'content' from Youtube, Vimeo, Rumble and any and all other accessible video sites - where else would they get a wide spectrum of video material to train on?