AI Content on Youtube

Alex And Samir just published a video about how youtube will change in the next 25 years. Controversially, it has a section about AI generated youtube videos. Meta has just shown off the ability to generate a photo realistic video of a creator with an AI model, and allow a person to talk to the AI video like they they were talking to a real creator.

“Let’s say you’re watching a Johnny Harris video and it says made with AI somewhere under it. And you don’t know what part of it is made with AI, but it turns out actually the video of Johnny explaining something is an AI avatar version of him, but he’s in his set. It looks like him, it sounds like him, and you can’t tell. But it says ‘made with AI’ in the corner. Do you care? No, you don’t.”

This provoked a lot of backlash in both the comments section and from other youtubers (the statement may be intentional rage baiting). “Inauthenticity” is the main complaint. “I want to have a real connection to the audience” says one creator. “I want to have a real connection to the creator” says another audience member.

Clearly, Alex has overstated his claim here. Can an AI video ever emulate a human so perfectly that it will be able to replace an actual actor onscreen? Unlikely. Look at what we’ve seen from the Star Wars deaging of Leia and Luke in Rogue One and The Mandalorian. And do people care that the video is actually AI? Evidently several people do.

However, I struggle with the “inauthenticity” argument. Youtubers are actors and presenters, first and foremost. There is automatically a layer of inauthenticity the moment you turn on the camera. Maybe they’re wearing makeup, maybe they’ve written a script in advance and rehearsed it, maybe they’ve done multiple takes of the video. There is never any “perfect authenticity” in any medium.

There’s a spectrum of authenticity. A person’s work can be perceived as “more authentic” and “less authentic” depending on how they make it and what they’re going for. AI video pushes the boundary of what we perceive as “inauthentic.” A video generated entirely by AI with no input at all from the creator? Inauthentic to most people; the creator didn’t make it, the AI made it. An AI generating a video in response to a vague one sentence prompt from the creator? Still inauthentic, but maybe now it fits into a broader direction of multiple other videos. A creator filming themselves reading their own script in one take in front of an AI background? Probably pretty authentic, although with an ugly backdrop.

I don’t think this technology will lead to the death of authentic videos on Youtube, although it will mean Youtube has to handle a lot more bot-generated slop than it even currently does. I expect good creators will start using these tools to do video “touchups.” Maybe there’s a section of a video where the creator’s face looks really weird. Rather than refilm the whole section and put in an ugly cut, the creator could pass those few frames through AI. They could do a similar thing if their voice suddenly cracks. On an extreme end, if their camera is broken, but they really need to post a video, they could record themselves reading the script, and have an AI ‘dub’ the audio over older recordings of themselves.

This AI boom is a concerning situation for the open internet. It will make it more difficult for average people to find real, valuable information. But it won’t be the death of authenticity, It will be another tool that some use to express themselves, and that some use to exploit others