Bending Reality or Creating a Question of Ownership and Responsibility for Errors
September 3, 2025
No AI. Just a dinobaby working the old-fashioned way.
The Google has may busy digital beavers working in the superbly managed organization. The BBC, however, seems to be agitated about what may be a truly insignificant matter: Ownership of substantially altered content and responsibility for errors introduced into digital content.
“YouTube secretly used AI to Edit People’s Videos. The Results Could Bend Reality” reports:
In recent months, YouTube has secretly used artificial intelligence (AI) to tweak people’s videos without letting them know or asking permission.
The BBC ignores a couple of issues that struck me as significant if — please, note the “if” — the assertion about YouTube altering content belonging to another entity. I will address these after some more BBC goodness.
I noted this statement:
the company [Google] has finally confirmed it is altering a limited number of videos on YouTube Shorts, the app’s short-form video feature.
Okay, the Google digital beavers are beavering away.
I also noted this passage attributed to Samuel Woolley, the Dietrich chair of disinformation studies at the University of Pittsburgh:
“You can make decisions about what you want your phone to do, and whether to turn on certain features. What we have here is a company manipulating content from leading users that is then being distributed to a public audience without the consent of the people who produce the videos…. “People are already distrustful of content that they encounter on social media. What happens if people know that companies are editing content from the top down, without even telling the content creators themselves?”
What about those issues I thought about after reading the BBC’s write up:
- If Google’s changes (improvements, enhancements, AI additions, whatever), will Google “own” the resulting content? My thought is that if Google can make more money by using AI to create a “fair use” argument, it will. How long will it take a court (assuming these are still functioning) to figure out if Google’s right or the individual content creator is the copyright holder?
- When, not if, Google’s AI introduces some type of error, is Google responsible or is it the creator’s problem? My hunch is that Google’s attorneys will argue that it provides a content creator with a free service. See the Terms of Service for YouTube and stop complaining.
- What if a content creator hits a home run and Google’s AI “learns” then outputs content via its assorted AI processes? Will Google be able to deplatform the original creator and just use it as a way to make money without paying the home-run hitting YouTube creator?
Perhaps the BBC would like to consider how these tiny “experiments” can expand until they shift the monetization methods further in favor of the Google. Maybe one reason is that BBC doesn’t think these types of thoughts. The Google, based on my experience, is indeed thinking these types of “what if” talks in a sterile room with whiteboards and brilliant Googlers playing with their mobile devices or snacking on goodies.
Stephen E Arnold, September 3, 2025
Comments
Got something to say?
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
