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General => General Technical Chat => Topic started by: SiliconWizard on December 04, 2024, 05:58:09 am

Title: The Nasty Youtube Features
Post by: SiliconWizard on December 04, 2024, 05:58:09 am
I just saw Dave's video on AI-generated, enabled by default voice dubbing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea-i2DG_9FE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea-i2DG_9FE)

I noticed it too yesterday on various videos. Extremely annoying. It seems to have lasted a very short time, it doesn't do it anymore here. Probably part of these features YT tests in selected countries just to get a feel.

Another one of these annoying features that has been going on for a good while are automatic subtitles. They seem to come and go by periods. They probably test that to see if that gets them more views or something. They have also made a furious comeback here: I didn't have them much anymore, and now they came back on 80% of the videos.

I would be fine with all this if they were NOT enabled by default and, at the very least, if there was a way to disable them by default via parameters. But they never make any of that user-modifiable. At best, they have parameters to enable them by default all the time (which they do on their own on a regular basis anyway), but almost nothing to disable them by default.

But this automated AI dubbing clearly takes the cake. :-DD
Title: Re: The Nasty Youtube Features
Post by: Ranayna on December 04, 2024, 11:48:25 am
I have never had subtitles enabled by default.
Automatically created subtitles are as far as i know always available, at least for english videos. And that has been the case for multiple years now.

What i have had happen is that i accidentally enable subtitles by hitting "c" if the video is focused and not whatever window i want to work in.
Title: Re: The Nasty Youtube Features
Post by: ebastler on December 04, 2024, 05:15:15 pm
I just saw Dave's video on AI-generated, enabled by default voice dubbing:

I got this on some other Youtube channel today. The translation was reasobanle, but the AI voice spoke with a surprisingly lame intonation -- I have heard much better from various text-to-speech solutions.

The voice-over was easily turned off via the settings icon on the video, reverting to the original voice track. Youtube also prompted me for feedback on the voice-over. I gave it a thumbs-down, and it has not recurred so far.
Title: Re: The Nasty Youtube Features
Post by: SiliconWizard on December 05, 2024, 01:05:40 am
Ah, they are back today. :-DD
It takes several clicks to disable it. Very annoying.
Dave made another video (eevBLAB 123) on this YT BS.

It's probably going to get much worse in the coming months/years and way beyond YT. You'll be shoved this crap endlessly whether you like it or not.

Title: Re: The Nasty Youtube Features
Post by: tggzzz on December 05, 2024, 12:24:20 pm
Dave made another video (eevBLAB 123) on this YT BS.

I tried to watch that, but failed because there are no subtitles. (I'm deaf)
Title: Re: The Nasty Youtube Features
Post by: tszaboo on December 05, 2024, 12:50:03 pm
I just saw Dave's video on AI-generated, enabled by default voice dubbing:
I noticed it too yesterday on various videos. Extremely annoying. It seems to have lasted a very short time, it doesn't do it anymore here. Probably part of these features YT tests in selected countries just to get a feel.

Another one of these annoying features that has been going on for a good while are automatic subtitles. They seem to come and go by periods. They probably test that to see if that gets them more views or something. They have also made a furious comeback here: I didn't have them much anymore, and now they came back on 80% of the videos.

I would be fine with all this if they were NOT enabled by default and, at the very least, if there was a way to disable them by default via parameters. But they never make any of that user-modifiable. At best, they have parameters to enable them by default all the time (which they do on their own on a regular basis anyway), but almost nothing to disable them by default.

But this automated AI dubbing clearly takes the cake. :-DD
The AI generated subtitles are controlled by the author of the video. You can enable to generate it to a video when you upload it.
I don't know if the AI dubbing is controlled by that, but I wouldn't be surprised if (after testing) they would allow that to be controlled as well.
On the other hand community notes are as far as I know are not controlled by the author.

For example I was watching a video describing the systematic measurement errors of weather stations, and youtube conveniently placed a community note below it, saying that "global warming is real because the UN said so, and we all gonna die". I'm sure the uploader didn't ask for that.
Title: Re: The Nasty Youtube Features
Post by: SiliconWizard on December 05, 2024, 11:36:42 pm
Dave made another video (eevBLAB 123) on this YT BS.

I tried to watch that, but failed because there are no subtitles. (I'm deaf)

Yes there are. You can enable the auto-generated english subtitles if you need that.
Title: Re: The Nasty Youtube Features
Post by: tggzzz on December 06, 2024, 01:10:19 am
Dave made another video (eevBLAB 123) on this YT BS.

I tried to watch that, but failed because there are no subtitles. (I'm deaf)

Yes there are. You can enable the auto-generated english subtitles if you need that.

I could have sworn I tried that, with no success. Maybe clicking the icon wasn't doing the normal thing. Oh well.
Title: Re: The Nasty Youtube Features
Post by: SiliconWizard on December 06, 2024, 06:23:58 am
So it appears that it shoves you subtitles when you don't want them and hides them when you do.

They could just add some user parameters to set once and for all whether you want subtitles by default (and your prefered language), or whether you never want them on by default. (With still the option on the viewer to enable/disable them on the fly.)

But noooo. User parameters are a thing of the past, apparently. (It's not just YT btw, it's a general trend in software.) Who needs parameters?  :-DD