eevBLAB 123 - MORE Youtube AI BS! - AI Description Summaries

[EEVblog]

Youtube are shoving even more AI BS down our throat with AI description summaries, whether we like it or not. Screw the creators.

[golden_labels]

The separation from author’s own summary makes sense. You write ones that make sense as descriptions. But many creators only use that to post sponsors’ links, contact information, other channels list, attributions, copyright threats, and similar things. And either no video summary, or one that isn’t more useful than the title.

The inability to turn it off or not giving it as a tool to creators? This way you, and not the platform, would be the one who has power. /s

[nctnico]

IMHO it is a good thing. Most videos are too long-winded to watch so it is nice to have an accurate content description which is based on the actual content provided by a third party.

[madires]

Fran's response:

[thm_w]

IMHO it is a good thing. Most videos are too long-winded to watch so it is nice to have an accurate content description which is based on the actual content provided by a third party.

Exactly, and in this case all of the summaries were reasonable. Even the Flake summary.

As a creator? Sure I'd be furious, because it pushes out the referral links.

[golden_labels]

The main risk I see: Alphabet preparing to make videos searcheable. In general that would be a great feature. I think Dave even wished to see something like smortnet-based video indexing. But that’s an amazing idea if it’s a tool provided to users (here: creators), with users in mind, and under their control.  We know Alphabet, we know their business model, so what to expect? Other than a trick more efficiently funneling people into the platform?

Fran’s case went much worse. I didn’t find Google search suggestions about Fran to be a problem.⁽¹⁾ Feature’s premise is showing what people search for. Not to be factually accurate or nice. But here we have misgendering in what imitates a description, a statement of fact. And then we go to suggested comment responses, which are just ridiculous: from accusing Google to picturing Fran as an old man afraid of technology.

Of course from Alphabet’s perspective this is a great feature. For channels, whose primary purpose is making money, this reduces cost of engaging with viewers by faking conversation. If it works, obviously.

⁽¹⁾ The “Is Fran Blanche a …?” situation.

[Nominal Animal]

I would not be surprised to find out Youtube intends to phase out what little is left of their search function, replacing it with some kind of AI "ask me what you want and I'll show you a list of related videos" that they can then monetize better (by curating the results through filter/sort that accounts for ad revenue, with videos with most ads or most lucrative ads shown first in the results).

I remember the days when you could search words and terms, and reliably exclude words and terms from both Google and Youtube results.  No longer; they already filter them through some kind of fuzzy engine.  Finding anything specific is extremely difficult.  (Even using Verbatim search with Google.)

If they add AI-generated summaries of videos that authors cannot edit, they can use those to target ads much better.  Final step is to remove external searching that does not take account into Youtube ad revenue, and it will only look like the search facility uses the summary texts rather than the author descriptions, while actually just maximizing ad profit possibilities and cultural/ideological filtering options for Youtube.

This might look like a conspiracy theory, but if I were in control of Youtube, that's what I'd do to maximize profits.  Just sayin'.

[EEVblog]

I would not be surprised to find out Youtube intends to phase out what little is left of their search function, replacing it with some kind of AI "ask me what you want and I'll show you a list of related videos" that they can then monetize better (by curating the results through filter/sort that accounts for ad revenue, with videos with most ads or most lucrative ads shown first in the results).

I remember the days when you could search words and terms, and reliably exclude words and terms from both Google and Youtube results.  No longer; they already filter them through some kind of fuzzy engine.  Finding anything specific is extremely difficult.  (Even using Verbatim search with Google.)

If they add AI-generated summaries of videos that authors cannot edit, they can use those to target ads much better.  Final step is to remove external searching that does not take account into Youtube ad revenue, and it will only look like the search facility uses the summary texts rather than the author descriptions, while actually just maximizing ad profit possibilities and cultural/ideological filtering options for Youtube.

Youtube has always been the world's second biggest search engine. Nothing new here at all.
This might look like a conspiracy theory, but if I were in control of Youtube, that's what I'd do to maximize profits.  Just sayin'.

They have had fully automated closed captions for every video for many years now, so every word uttered in every video would be searchable. In effect they have the entire script of every video, with every key word indexable.
The AI summary might help in terms of a phrase search, but it doesn't help at all really in terms of search keywords. The script is going to be way better for that search task.
Expecially on technical videos that cover a lot of specific individual stuff that doesn't make it into the AI summary.

[eTobey]

The AI description has much more space then the original description. And not having the option to disable it, is quite a A-hole move.

As they have already removed the thumbs down counter  , i could imagine, that this is going to be used in the future in a way we wouldnt like it either! I can think of youtube doing company xy a favor, in showing less criticism videos about them, or their products, because they have this nice feature, that is tested by shoving it down our throats. And no one will ever notice, only some will notice, that particular videos have less views...

The search is already bad enough, as they stuff unrelated and even already seen videos in there! Its a disgrace! Its gonna get worse i tell ya.

I would not mind following dave to a new platform!

[Nominal Animal]

The AI summary might help in terms of a phrase search, but it doesn't help at all really in terms of search keywords.

They're already dropped keyword search.  The results are videos that have something related to videos that have something related to the words in the search; not videos whose closed captions or description contain the keywords.

If you go to Youtube without logging in, clear all cookies, and do a search on Neal Asher, you get exactly six results with Neal Asher in the title, followed by tons of some kind of AI-curated results with nothing to do with Neal Asher directly, only indirectly (say, via Sci-Fi, or anything similar to the term "polity"), interspersed with a few videos directly mentioning Neal Asher.

Youtube search is utterly fucked already, and these changes definitely won't make it any better, only worse.  The AI summary just makes it easier to obfuscate the search algorithm, by giving a plausible excuse, but actually allowing Youtube to curate the results based on what monetary value they can get from the user viewing those videos.  They're not interested in serving the users what they want, but to maximize the profit from what users do view.

Which I understand perfectly from a short-term business perspective.  It makes Youtube less and less useful for myself personally, though, pushing me to switch to the competitors (even though they have fewer content creators).

[EEVblog]

I would not mind following dave to a new platform!

I am literally a pioneer in new platforms.
I'm a founding member on LBRY/Odysee, one of the first to post natively on X, plus Facebook. And Bitchute and Rumble for older videos. And I even have my own old school RSS video server with every video from #1.
I've been on every platform known to man.

[SiliconWizard]

One major problem with these AI summaries, apart from the fact that the creators have zero influence on them (which some apparently see as "a good thing" but lets YT state arbitrary stuff on a video without any recourse), is that it very often gives false information. Fran has made a video about that, but I've seen a number of others on the same topic already: the summaries often contain false information either on the video itself or on the creator.
And what can they do about it? Nada.

[nctnico]

One major problem with these AI summaries, apart from the fact that the creators have zero influence on them (which some apparently see as "a good thing" but lets YT state arbitrary stuff on a video without any recourse), is that it very often gives false information. Fran has made a video about that, but I've seen a number of others on the same topic already: the summaries often contain false information either on the video itself or on the creator.
And what can they do about it? Nada.

You can also turn that around. If the AI gets the intention of the video wrong, could that be because the creator of the video isn't clear on the intend? I skipped through Fran's video quickly but I did get the part (around 3:00) where she mentioned she put up a video because she wanted to impress some people who would come over later / she has a meeting with (doesn't matter what it is precisely). How wrong is the interpretation of landing a job (where a job doesn't have to be a permanent position but could also be a project)? Actually, I looked up the video Fran is referring to and she mentions she is chasing a position. So I don't see how the AI is wrong here. Maybe you can even go so far as using the AI as feedback to check if videos convey the message they are supposed to convey. The AI seems to be brutally honest. And it is possible the AI divides the video into subjects and then tries to pick the primary subject matter. As getting a position / job somewhere is a major step in most people's life it could be that a subject which was intended as a side note, gets flagged as one of the main topics of the video. And again, this could be perceived as such by the viewers as well. Food for thought... 

[eTobey]

When was the last time, youtube added a nice feature (or a feature that did not make things worse)

I can just think of the faster playback, to skip unrelated  in videos. But i cant remember when it was added.

[EEVblog]

One major problem with these AI summaries, apart from the fact that the creators have zero influence on them (which some apparently see as "a good thing" but lets YT state arbitrary stuff on a video without any recourse), is that it very often gives false information. Fran has made a video about that, but I've seen a number of others on the same topic already: the summaries often contain false information either on the video itself or on the creator.
And what can they do about it? Nada.

You can also turn that around. If the AI gets the intention of the video wrong, could that be because the creator of the video isn't clear on the intend? I skipped through Fran's video quickly but I did get the part (around 3:00) where she mentioned she put up a video because she wanted to impress some people who would come over later / she has a meeting with (doesn't matter what it is precisely). How wrong is the interpretation of landing a job (where a job doesn't have to be a permanent position but could also be a project)? Actually, I looked up the video Fran is referring to and she mentions she is chasing a position. So I don't see how the AI is wrong here. Maybe you can even go so far as using the AI as feedback to check if videos convey the message they are supposed to convey. The AI seems to be brutally honest. And it is possible the AI divides the video into subjects and then tries to pick the primary subject matter. As getting a position / job somewhere is a major step in most people's life it could be that a subject which was intended as a side note, gets flagged as one of the main topics of the video. And again, this could be perceived as such by the viewers as well. Food for thought... 

Wrong is still wrong.
But the most important point is that it is conveying information, or information in a way the creaor may not have intended.
Of course there are going to be viewers who think this is the most helpful thing ever. but always remember that Youtube does not exist without the creatos. It's still in the name, YOUtube.

[golden_labels]

Correction. YouTube does not exist without content to attract people. The distinction is not without relevance: neither corporate content suppliers nor profit-focused individual endeavors care, if only they can adjust without considerable losses.

To me your content is valuable and I’ll follow whichever distribution mechanism you choose. But I’m also free from being responsible for Alphabet’s stakeholders’ or board’s money.

[McBryce]

The AI summaries are a bad development, but even worse (for people in non-english speaking countries) is that it turns on the AI translation automatically and you have to manually turn it off each time. This is bad enough for technical videos like yours Dave, but I am also a big fan of Ozzyman reviews, where his humour, accent and "colourful descriptions" are a main if not the main reason for watching them. Now Ozzyman starts with an emotionless AI German translation for me and I have to switch back to the original audio every time. Youtube: Please make this awful thing go away as soon as possible.

McBryce.