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The video shown as evidence is full of compression artifacts. The influencer is non-technical and assumes it's an AI filter, but the output is obviously not goo

by Aurornis 11mo ago

The video shown as evidence is full of compression artifacts. The influencer is non-technical and assumes it's an AI filter, but the output is obviously not good quality anywhere. To me, this clearly looks like a case of a very high compression ratio with the motion blocks swimming around on screen. They might have some detail enhancement in the loop to try to overcome the blockiness which, in this case, results in the swimming effect. It's strange to see these claims being taken at face value on a technical forum. It should be a dead giveaway that this is a compression issue because the entire video is obviously highly compressed and lacking detail.

maxbond 11mo ago
This is an unfair analysis. They discuss compression artifacts. They highlight things like their eyes getting bigger which are not what you usually expect from a compression artifact. If your compression pipeline gives people anime eyes because it's doing "detail enhancement", your compression pipeline is also a filter. If you apply some transformation to a creator's content, and then their viewers perceive that as them disingenuously using a filter, and your response to their complaints is to "well actually" them about whether it is a filter or a compression artifact, you've lost the plot. To be honest, calling someone "non-technical" and then "well actually"ing them about hair splitting details when the outcome is the same is patronizing, and I really wish we wouldn't treat "normies" that way. Regardless of whether they are technical, they are living in a world increasingly intermediated by technology, and we should be listening to their feedback on it. They have to live with the consequences of our design decisions. If we believe them to be non-technical, we should extend a lot of generosity to them in their use of terminology, and address what they mean instead of nitpicking.
- panxyh 11mo ago
  The difference is wether the effect is intentional or not. "Non-technical" isn't an insult. What you call "well actually"ing is well within limits on a technical forum.
  - maxbond 11mo ago
    From a technical standpoint it's interesting whether it's deliberate and whether it's compression, but it's not a fair criticism of this video, no. Dismissing someone's concerns over hair splitting is text book "well actually"ing. I wouldn't have taken issue to a comment discussing the difference from a perspective of technical curiosity.
    - Aurornis 11mo ago
      > Dismissing someone's concerns I agreed that the output was bad! I'm not dismissing their concerns, I was explaining that their analysis was not a good technical explanation for what was happening.
- Aurornis 11mo ago
  > To be honest, calling someone "non-technical" and then "well actually"ing them about hair splitting details when the outcome is the same is patronizing, and I really wish we wouldn't treat "normies" that way. I'm not critiquing their opinion that the result is bad. I also said the result was bad! I was critiquing the fact that someone on HN was presenting their non-technical analysis as a conclusive technical fact. Non-technical is describing their background. It's not an insult. I will be the first to admit I have no experience or knowledge in their domain, and I'm not going to try to interpret anything I see in their world. It's a simple fact. This person is not qualified to be explaining what's happening, yet their analysis was being repeated as conclusive fact here on a technical forum
  - maxbond 11mo ago
    "The influencer is non-technical" and "It's strange to see these claims being taken at face value on a technical forum," to me, reads as a dismissal. As in, "these claims are not true and this person doesn't have the background to comment." Non-technical doesn't need to be an insult to be dismissive. You are giving us a reason not to down weight their perspective, but since the outcome is the same regardless of their background, I don't think that's productive. I don't really see where you said the output was "bad," you said it was a compression artifact which had a "swimming effect", but I don't really see any acknowledgement that the influencer had a point or that the transformation was functionally a filter because it changed their appearance above and beyond losing detail (made their eyes bigger in a way an "anime eyes" filter might). If I've misread you I apologize but I don't really see where it is I misread you.
    - panxyh 11mo ago
      The outcome is visible and not up for discussion, so is the fact that this is a problem for the influencer. He's getting his compassionate nodding and emotional support in the comments over there. I agree that him being non-technical shouldn't be discussion-ending in this case, but it is a valid observation, wether necessary or not.
      - 11mo ago
popalchemist 11mo ago
You obviously didn't watch the video, the claims are beyond the scope of compression and include things like eye and mouth enlargement, and you can clearly see the filter glitching off on some frames.
xboxnolifes 11mo ago
There are some very clear examples elsewhere. It looks as if youtube applied AI filters to make compression better by removing artifacts and smoothing colors.
- Aurornis 11mo ago
  > There are some very clear examples elsewhere. Such as? This seems like such an easy thing for someone to document with screenshots and tests against the content they uploaded. So why is the top voted comment an Instagram reel of a non-technical person trying to interpret what's happening? If this is common, please share some examples (that aren't in Instagram reel format from non-technical influencers)
  - maxbond 11mo ago
    > So why is the top voted comment an Instagram reel of a non-technical person trying to interpret what's happening? It's difficult for me to read this as anything other than dismissing this person's views as being unworthy of discussing because they are are "non-technical," a characterization you objected to, but if you feel this shouldn't be the top level comment I'd suggest you submit a better one. Here's a more detailed breakdown I found after about 15m of searching, I imagine there are better sources out there if you or anyone else cares to look harder: https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/1lllnse/youtube_shorts_are_almost_certainly_being_ai/ https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/1lllnse/youtube_sh... To me it's fairly subtle but there's a waxy texture to the second screenshot. This video presents some more examples, some of them have are more textured: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86nhP8tvbLY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86nhP8tvbLY
    - ffsm8 11mo ago
      Upscaling and even de-noising is something very different to applying filters to increase size of lips/eyes...
      - maxbond 11mo ago
cromka 11mo ago
Someone in the comments explained that this effect was in auto translated videos. Meta and YT apparently use AI to modify the videos to have people match the language when speaking. Which is a nightmare on its own, but not exactly the same.
- veeti 11mo ago
  I've come across these auto translated videos while traveling, and actually found them quite helpful. Lot of local "authentic" content that I wouldn't have seen otherwise.
  - sofixa 11mo ago
    I really hate them. Once again, Google have completely failed to consider multi-lingual people. Like Google search, even if you explicitly tell it what languages it should show results in, it's often wrong and only gives results in Russian when searching in Cyrillic, even for words that do not exist in Russian but do in the language defined in the settings. Also the voice is pretty unemotional and nothing to do with the original voice. And it being a default that you can't even seem to disable...
    - TRiG_Ireland 11mo ago
      Last night, I came across a video with a title in English and an "Autodubbed" tag. I assumed it would be dubbed into English (my language) from some other language. But it wasn't. It was in French, and clearly the creator's original voice. The automatic subtitles were also in French. I don't know what the "Autodubbed" tag meant, but clearly something wasn't working. I am by no means fluent in French, but I speak it well enough to get by with the aid of the subtitles, so that was fine. In an ideal world, I'd have the original French audio with English subtitles, but that did not appear to be an option.
    - jack_pp 11mo ago
      Recently they added a setting for default language
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]

maxbond 11mo ago

This is an unfair analysis. They discuss compression artifacts. They highlight things like their eyes getting bigger which are not what you usually expect from a compression artifact. If your compression pipeline gives people anime eyes because it's doing "detail enhancement", your compression pipeline is also a filter. If you apply some transformation to a creator's content, and then their viewers perceive that as them disingenuously using a filter, and your response to their complaints is to "well actually" them about whether it is a filter or a compression artifact, you've lost the plot. To be honest, calling someone "non-technical" and then "well actually"ing them about hair splitting details when the outcome is the same is patronizing, and I really wish we wouldn't treat "normies" that way. Regardless of whether they are technical, they are living in a world increasingly intermediated by technology, and we should be listening to their feedback on it. They have to live with the consequences of our design decisions. If we believe them to be non-technical, we should extend a lot of generosity to them in their use of terminology, and address what they mean instead of nitpicking.

panxyh 11mo ago
The difference is wether the effect is intentional or not. "Non-technical" isn't an insult. What you call "well actually"ing is well within limits on a technical forum.
- maxbond 11mo ago
  From a technical standpoint it's interesting whether it's deliberate and whether it's compression, but it's not a fair criticism of this video, no. Dismissing someone's concerns over hair splitting is text book "well actually"ing. I wouldn't have taken issue to a comment discussing the difference from a perspective of technical curiosity.
  - Aurornis 11mo ago
    > Dismissing someone's concerns I agreed that the output was bad! I'm not dismissing their concerns, I was explaining that their analysis was not a good technical explanation for what was happening.
Aurornis 11mo ago
> To be honest, calling someone "non-technical" and then "well actually"ing them about hair splitting details when the outcome is the same is patronizing, and I really wish we wouldn't treat "normies" that way. I'm not critiquing their opinion that the result is bad. I also said the result was bad! I was critiquing the fact that someone on HN was presenting their non-technical analysis as a conclusive technical fact. Non-technical is describing their background. It's not an insult. I will be the first to admit I have no experience or knowledge in their domain, and I'm not going to try to interpret anything I see in their world. It's a simple fact. This person is not qualified to be explaining what's happening, yet their analysis was being repeated as conclusive fact here on a technical forum
- maxbond 11mo ago
  "The influencer is non-technical" and "It's strange to see these claims being taken at face value on a technical forum," to me, reads as a dismissal. As in, "these claims are not true and this person doesn't have the background to comment." Non-technical doesn't need to be an insult to be dismissive. You are giving us a reason not to down weight their perspective, but since the outcome is the same regardless of their background, I don't think that's productive. I don't really see where you said the output was "bad," you said it was a compression artifact which had a "swimming effect", but I don't really see any acknowledgement that the influencer had a point or that the transformation was functionally a filter because it changed their appearance above and beyond losing detail (made their eyes bigger in a way an "anime eyes" filter might). If I've misread you I apologize but I don't really see where it is I misread you.
  - panxyh 11mo ago
    The outcome is visible and not up for discussion, so is the fact that this is a problem for the influencer. He's getting his compassionate nodding and emotional support in the comments over there. I agree that him being non-technical shouldn't be discussion-ending in this case, but it is a valid observation, wether necessary or not.
    - 11mo ago

popalchemist 11mo ago

You obviously didn't watch the video, the claims are beyond the scope of compression and include things like eye and mouth enlargement, and you can clearly see the filter glitching off on some frames.

xboxnolifes 11mo ago

There are some very clear examples elsewhere. It looks as if youtube applied AI filters to make compression better by removing artifacts and smoothing colors.

Aurornis 11mo ago
> There are some very clear examples elsewhere. Such as? This seems like such an easy thing for someone to document with screenshots and tests against the content they uploaded. So why is the top voted comment an Instagram reel of a non-technical person trying to interpret what's happening? If this is common, please share some examples (that aren't in Instagram reel format from non-technical influencers)
- maxbond 11mo ago
  > So why is the top voted comment an Instagram reel of a non-technical person trying to interpret what's happening? It's difficult for me to read this as anything other than dismissing this person's views as being unworthy of discussing because they are are "non-technical," a characterization you objected to, but if you feel this shouldn't be the top level comment I'd suggest you submit a better one. Here's a more detailed breakdown I found after about 15m of searching, I imagine there are better sources out there if you or anyone else cares to look harder: https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/1lllnse/youtube_shorts_are_almost_certainly_being_ai/ https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/1lllnse/youtube_sh... To me it's fairly subtle but there's a waxy texture to the second screenshot. This video presents some more examples, some of them have are more textured: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86nhP8tvbLY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86nhP8tvbLY
  - ffsm8 11mo ago
    Upscaling and even de-noising is something very different to applying filters to increase size of lips/eyes...
    - maxbond 11mo ago

cromka 11mo ago

Someone in the comments explained that this effect was in auto translated videos. Meta and YT apparently use AI to modify the videos to have people match the language when speaking. Which is a nightmare on its own, but not exactly the same.

veeti 11mo ago
I've come across these auto translated videos while traveling, and actually found them quite helpful. Lot of local "authentic" content that I wouldn't have seen otherwise.
- sofixa 11mo ago
  I really hate them. Once again, Google have completely failed to consider multi-lingual people. Like Google search, even if you explicitly tell it what languages it should show results in, it's often wrong and only gives results in Russian when searching in Cyrillic, even for words that do not exist in Russian but do in the language defined in the settings. Also the voice is pretty unemotional and nothing to do with the original voice. And it being a default that you can't even seem to disable...
  - TRiG_Ireland 11mo ago
    Last night, I came across a video with a title in English and an "Autodubbed" tag. I assumed it would be dubbed into English (my language) from some other language. But it wasn't. It was in French, and clearly the creator's original voice. The automatic subtitles were also in French. I don't know what the "Autodubbed" tag meant, but clearly something wasn't working. I am by no means fluent in French, but I speak it well enough to get by with the aid of the subtitles, so that was fine. In an ideal world, I'd have the original French audio with English subtitles, but that did not appear to be an option.
  - jack_pp 11mo ago
    Recently they added a setting for default language

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]