YouTube is making ready to replace its insurance policies to crack down on creators’ means to generate income from “inauthentic” content material, together with mass-produced movies and different forms of repetitive content material — issues which have turn into simpler to generate with the assistance of AI know-how.
On July 15, the corporate will replace its YouTube Companion Program (YPP) Monetization insurance policies with extra detailed tips round what sort of content material can earn creators cash and what can not.
The precise coverage language itself has not but been launched, however a web page on YouTube’s Assist documentation explains that creators have at all times been required to add “unique” and “genuine” content material. The replace says that the brand new language will assist creators to higher perceive what “inauthentic” content material seems to be like at the moment.
Some YouTube creators had been involved that the replace would restrict their means to monetize sure forms of movies, like response movies or these that includes clips, however a put up from YouTube Head of Editorial & Creator Liaison, Rene Ritchie, says that’s not the case.
In a video replace revealed on Tuesday, Ritchie says that the change is only a “minor replace” to YouTube’s longstanding YPP insurance policies and is designed to higher determine when content material is mass-produced or repetitive.
Plus, Ritchie provides, this sort of content material has been ineligible for monetization for years, because it’s content material that viewers usually contemplate spam.
What Ritche isn’t saying, nonetheless, is how a lot simpler it’s to create such movies as of late.
With the rise of AI know-how, YouTube has turn into flooded with AI slop, a time period referencing low-quality media or content material made utilizing generative AI know-how. For occasion, it’s widespread to discover an AI voice overlaid on images, video clips, or different repurposed content material, due to text-to-video AI instruments. Some channels full of AI music have hundreds of thousands of subscribers. Pretend, AI-generated movies about information occasions, just like the Diddy trial, have racked up hundreds of thousands of views.
In one other instance, a real crime homicide sequence on YouTube that went viral was discovered to be totally AI-generated, 404 Media reported earlier this yr. Even YouTube CEO Neal Mohan’s likeness was used in an AI-generated phishing rip-off on the location, regardless of having instruments in place that enable customers to report deepfake movies.
Whereas YouTube could downplay the approaching modifications as a “minor” replace or clarification, the truth is that permitting this sort of content material to develop and its creators to revenue may in the end injury YouTube’s popularity and worth. It’s no shock, then, that the corporate desires clear insurance policies in place that enable it to enact mass bans of AI slop creators from YPP.
