I don’t want my doodles ran through AI, they’re bad enough as-is!
When chatbots started to feel more human, many of us in tech recognized an opportunity: we could communicate with the dead. Train AI on a person’s entire life, all their works, tweaks made from people who knew the deceased, their voice recordings, images, anything we could digitize from the dead person’s life. They’re dead, they can’t consent to it, and the living cling to love like it’s the only thing that matters. Because it is. It’s a perfect business model. Naturally, most of us considered it utterly evil, but the world is full of capitalists. Just as such technology was made and improved in fictional dystopian worlds like that of Cyberpunk 2077, we can find the same dystopian ideas here.
We all have contributed to AI without consent. We’ve had pieces of our lives carved apart for AI already. Our poetry, our music, our social media posts, books, movies, art, everything we make, our very soul, has been thrown into a model. Our lives have already been dismantled and studied for profit. The output of souls, stored without their permission in data centers, churning through water, power, and rare minerals. It sounds like hell, and it’s something we’ve already done.
But it still hurts every time we’re reminded of it.
A few YouTubers noticed their videos looked funny. Upon closer inspection, they noticed that YouTube had filtered their videos using AI “upscaler” filters that made them look AI-generated. None of the YouTubers consented to having their videos used in this fashion, nor having their images, likeness, or artworks diluted by AI. But YouTube didn’t give them a choice. And that’ll just be okay. Who’s going to stop YouTube, anyway?
YouTube’s Unethical AI “Upscaling”
Imagine you paint something to show in an art gallery. However, without warning, someone at the gallery decides to change it. They paint some harsher lines, darken your background to make the subject “pop,” blur some details and sharpen others. Obviously, you’d find the painting was not improved, but ruined. It is no longer the artistic vision of the person who made it.
In digital art, obviously there are backups, but if the only thing that someone ever experiences is the bastardization of the original creation, then does it matter that the original is preserved on the creator’s drive? It’s a question about whether art matters in a vacuum, but I’d argue when it comes to spreading a message, the observation and consumption of art certainly matters. People don’t share videos to YouTube because they don’t have anything to say.
YouTube admitted they had taken the videos creators had made themselves and forced them through an AI “upscaler.” This muddled details, while adding sharp lines in some areas. Everything ran through it looks like it’s made out of clay, or from a robot’s hallucinations. Nothing feels real. Everything feels cheapened. Creators had their hours of work turned into AI slop.
via Twitter
None of these creators consented to having their work ran through an AI filter that made their hard work look like AI slop. Most creative people are not comfortable with generative AI, that creates unnecessary waste, relies on underpaid or even slave and child labor, and steals from real creatives to make slop. However, by forcing all creators to use this junk, YouTube is forcing a trend. They’re normalizing the widespread look of AI. That glossy, uncanny valley shit that people have come to loathe. They’re telling creatives that “everyone’s doing it,” while forcing viewers to see it as normal. They’re normalizing trash and expected no one to complain.
Taking someone’s artistic vision and ruining it is one thing. Using the world’s largest plagiarism machines to normalize putting real creatives out of business, pollute, and rely on wasteful practices takes this little offense and makes it so much worse.
Who Can Stop Google’s YouTube?
What are you going to do about it? Half the news of this came from YouTubers. It’s not like we’re all going to boycott YouTube and start using Vimeo or some other service. Google snatched up YouTube and made it impossible to compete with, just as it’s impossible to compete with Google. It’s YouTube or nothing for long form videos online. Sure, TikTok, Instagram, even Bluesky are starting to get into short form videos, brainrot, that kind of junk, but anything longer than a few minutes is on YouTube, and you’re stuck with it. Google knows that. That’s why they just do not care.
It’s not as though there are laws protecting people who actually make art from AI stealing their work for new models. It’s not like there are laws protecting artists from having their artwork ran through AI filters and uploaded on their behalf, under their name. And both the current regime and previous administration aren’t interested in protecting the work of real humans.
So, what are you going to do? Likely just fume at your computer for a few seconds and then load up a YouTube video to chill out. John Oliver has some good ones. Oh, and an ASMR video to take the edge off, very nice.
Sources:
- AJ Dellinger, Gizmodo
- Rhett Shull, YouTube
- Ryan Whitwam, Ars Technica