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Are these AI filters, or just applying high compression/recompressing with new algorithms (which look like smoothing out details)? edit: here's the effect I'm

Are these AI filters, or just applying high compression/recompressing with new algorithms (which look like smoothing out details)? edit: here's the effect I'm talking about with lossy compression and adaptive quantization: https://cloudinary.com/blog/what_to_focus_on_in_image_compression_fidelity_or_appeal#a_focus_on_appeal https://cloudinary.com/blog/what_to_focus_on_in_image_compre... The result is smoothing of skin, and applied heavily on video (as Youtube does, just look for any old video that was HD years ago) would look this way

randycupertino 10mo ago
It's filters, I posted an example of it below. Here is a link: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DO9MwTHCoR_/?igsh=MTZybml2NDBwbmhxMw%3D%3D https://www.instagram.com/reel/DO9MwTHCoR_/?igsh=MTZybml2NDB...
- ares623 10mo ago
  The time of giving these corps the benefit of the doubt is over.
  - bongodongobob 10mo ago
    Wouldn't this just be unnecessary compute using AI? Compression or just normal filtering seems far more likely. It just seems like increasing the power bill for no reason.
    - ares623 10mo ago
      one thing we know for sure is that since chatgpt humiliated Google, all teams seem to have been given carte blanche freedom to do whatever it takes to make Google the leader again, and who knows what kind of people thrive in that kind of environment. just today we saw what OpenAI is willing to do to eke out any advantage it can.
    - michaelt 10mo ago
      Video filters aren't a radical new thing. You can apply things like 'slim waist' filters in real time with nothing more than a smartphone's processor. People in the media business have long found their media sells better if they use photoshop-or-whatever to give their subjects bigger chests, defined waists, clearer skin, fewer wrinkles, less shiny skin, more hair volume. Traditional manual photoshop tries to be subtle about such changes - but perhaps going from edits 0.5% of people can spot to bigger edits 2% of people can spot pays off in increased sales/engagement/ad revenue from those that don't spot the edits. And we all know every tech company is telling every department to shoehorn AI into their products anywhere they can. If I'm a Youtube product manager and adding a mandatory makeup filter doesn't need much compute; increases engagement overall; and gets me a $50k bonus for hitting my use-more-AI goal for the year - a little thing like authenticity might not stop me.
- data-ottawa 10mo ago
  It's very hard to tell in that instagram video, it would be a lot clearer if someone overlaid the original unaltered video and the one viewers on YouTube are seeing. That would presumably be an easy smoking gun for some content creator to produce. There are heavy alterations in that link, but having not seen the original, and in this format it's not clear to me how they compare.
  - randycupertino 10mo ago
    you can literally see the filters turn on and off making his eyes and lips bigger as he moves his face. It's clearly a face filter.
    - diputsmonro 10mo ago
      To be extra clear for others, keep watching until about the middle of the video where he shows clips from the YouTube videos
      - scrollop 10mo ago
        I would but his right "eyebrow" is too distracting
        randycupertino 10mo ago
        It's a scar in his eyebrow from a bicycle accident as a child: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2183994895455038 https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2183994895455038
  - jeffbee 10mo ago
    What would "unaltered video" even mean.
    - bmicraft 10mo ago
      The video before it was uploaded.
- echelon 10mo ago
  The examples shown in the links are not filters for aesthetics. These are clearly experiments in data compression These people are having a moral crusade against an unannounced Google data compression test thinking Google is using AI to "enhance their videos". (Did they ever stop to ask themselves why or to what end?) This level of AI paranoia is getting annoying. This is clearly just Google trying to save money. Not undermine reality or whatever vague Orwellian thing they're being accused of.
  - randycupertino 10mo ago
    Why would data compression make his eyes bigger?
    - echelon 10mo ago
      Because it's a neural technique, not one based on pixels or frames. https://blog.metaphysic.ai/what-is-neural-compression/ https://blog.metaphysic.ai/what-is-neural-compression/ Instead of artifacts in pixels, you'll see artifacts in larger features. https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.11379 https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.11379 Look at figure 5 and beyond.
      - mh- 10mo ago
        Like a visual version of psychoacoustic compression. Neat. Thanks for sharing.
        anticensor 10mo ago
        Then they should improve psychovisual grounding of their compressors by a lot.
        mh- 10mo ago
        I'm commenting on the paper, not the sensationalist thread it was posted in.
  - 10mo ago
Aurornis 10mo ago
It's compression artifacts. They might be heavily compressing video and trying to recover detail on the client side.

randycupertino 10mo ago

It's filters, I posted an example of it below. Here is a link: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DO9MwTHCoR_/?igsh=MTZybml2NDBwbmhxMw%3D%3D https://www.instagram.com/reel/DO9MwTHCoR_/?igsh=MTZybml2NDB...

ares623 10mo ago
The time of giving these corps the benefit of the doubt is over.
- bongodongobob 10mo ago
  Wouldn't this just be unnecessary compute using AI? Compression or just normal filtering seems far more likely. It just seems like increasing the power bill for no reason.
  - ares623 10mo ago
    one thing we know for sure is that since chatgpt humiliated Google, all teams seem to have been given carte blanche freedom to do whatever it takes to make Google the leader again, and who knows what kind of people thrive in that kind of environment. just today we saw what OpenAI is willing to do to eke out any advantage it can.
  - michaelt 10mo ago
    Video filters aren't a radical new thing. You can apply things like 'slim waist' filters in real time with nothing more than a smartphone's processor. People in the media business have long found their media sells better if they use photoshop-or-whatever to give their subjects bigger chests, defined waists, clearer skin, fewer wrinkles, less shiny skin, more hair volume. Traditional manual photoshop tries to be subtle about such changes - but perhaps going from edits 0.5% of people can spot to bigger edits 2% of people can spot pays off in increased sales/engagement/ad revenue from those that don't spot the edits. And we all know every tech company is telling every department to shoehorn AI into their products anywhere they can. If I'm a Youtube product manager and adding a mandatory makeup filter doesn't need much compute; increases engagement overall; and gets me a $50k bonus for hitting my use-more-AI goal for the year - a little thing like authenticity might not stop me.
data-ottawa 10mo ago
It's very hard to tell in that instagram video, it would be a lot clearer if someone overlaid the original unaltered video and the one viewers on YouTube are seeing. That would presumably be an easy smoking gun for some content creator to produce. There are heavy alterations in that link, but having not seen the original, and in this format it's not clear to me how they compare.
- randycupertino 10mo ago
  you can literally see the filters turn on and off making his eyes and lips bigger as he moves his face. It's clearly a face filter.
  - diputsmonro 10mo ago
    To be extra clear for others, keep watching until about the middle of the video where he shows clips from the YouTube videos
    - scrollop 10mo ago
      I would but his right "eyebrow" is too distracting
      - randycupertino 10mo ago
        It's a scar in his eyebrow from a bicycle accident as a child: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2183994895455038 https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2183994895455038
- jeffbee 10mo ago
  What would "unaltered video" even mean.
  - bmicraft 10mo ago
    The video before it was uploaded.
echelon 10mo ago
The examples shown in the links are not filters for aesthetics. These are clearly experiments in data compression These people are having a moral crusade against an unannounced Google data compression test thinking Google is using AI to "enhance their videos". (Did they ever stop to ask themselves why or to what end?) This level of AI paranoia is getting annoying. This is clearly just Google trying to save money. Not undermine reality or whatever vague Orwellian thing they're being accused of.
- randycupertino 10mo ago
  Why would data compression make his eyes bigger?
  - echelon 10mo ago
    Because it's a neural technique, not one based on pixels or frames. https://blog.metaphysic.ai/what-is-neural-compression/ https://blog.metaphysic.ai/what-is-neural-compression/ Instead of artifacts in pixels, you'll see artifacts in larger features. https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.11379 https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.11379 Look at figure 5 and beyond.
    - mh- 10mo ago
      Like a visual version of psychoacoustic compression. Neat. Thanks for sharing.
      - anticensor 10mo ago
        Then they should improve psychovisual grounding of their compressors by a lot.
        mh- 10mo ago
        I'm commenting on the paper, not the sensationalist thread it was posted in.
- 10mo ago

Aurornis 10mo ago

It's compression artifacts. They might be heavily compressing video and trying to recover detail on the client side.