Youtube may be AI-ifying your videos
Without your knowledge or consent.
Another week, another case of a Big Tech behemoth deciding it knows best what to do with your property. It appears that Google’s YouTube has been surreptitiously using artificial intelligence to alter videos uploaded to its "Shorts" platform, applying a bizarre visual filter without the knowledge, let alone the consent, of the creators themselves. This is not some optional "enhancement" filter but a mandatory, platform-wide alteration of creators' original work, a stark reminder that on these centralized platforms, your content is merely raw material for their digital machinations.
The discovery was brought to light by several creators, including musicians Rick Beato and Rhett Shull, who noticed a disturbing discrepancy between their video uploads on Instagram versus YouTube Shorts. Shull described the YouTube version in no uncertain terms:
"And immediately, I noticed one of them looked like an AI deepfake of his short. You can see it in his face, in his hair... It just looks uncanny and weird and fake. The one that looks like an AI deepfake is here on YouTube."
When Shull examined his own content, he found the same bizarre alteration. Details that are critical in his line of work, music and guitar videos, were distorted into a smeary, artificial mess. "If you start to look at things like the neck pickup on the Gretsch that I'm playing, or the way the strings go over the pickup... it just looks wrong ." The effect has been widely described as a "smeary" or "oil painting" look.
The most plausible theory for this unsolicited digital vandalism is that YouTube is using an AI model to aggressively compress videos to save on server costs and bandwidth, then attempting to "upscale" them back to a presentable resolution. While corporate bean counters might see this as clever optimization, the result is a significant degradation of the creator's original work.
Furthermore, it’s a stunningly inept application of technology. It makes perfect sense that musicians were among the first to notice. AI compression models are notoriously poor at rendering fine, straight details. Things like guitar strings, frets, and the texture of a shirt are precisely the kind of content these one-size-fits-all AI models will mangle. The AI, lacking context, either sharpens details into bizarre artifacts or smooths them into a plastic-like oblivion.
This goes far beyond a simple technical issue. It is a profound ethical breach that strikes at the heart of trust and ownership. By altering a creator’s work without consent, YouTube is not only violating their intellectual property but also actively damaging their reputation. As Shull articulates, the audience's trust is the most vital asset a creator has:
"When you notice something has been made with AI, I think it does sort of erode that trust. It makes you question the reality of what you're seeing. Is this actually real? Is this actually Rick interviewing Mike McCready? Or is this actually Rhett playing this Gretsch guitar?
The trust of my audience is the most important thing that I have as a YouTube creator. Whether or not you like my content or agree with what I have to say, underneath all of that is this underlying foundation that you trust what I'm making and what I'm saying and what I'm doing is truly me. It is my real opinion. It is my real thought. It is my real work.
And replacing or enhancing my work without my consent or knowledge with some kind of AI upscaling system, not only… erodes that trust with the audience, but it also erodes my trust in the platform of YouTube."
While we, as AI enthusiasts, see nothing wrong with using AI as an added value in content creation, this unilateral action does demonstrate that YouTube does not view itself a just a platform, but as the ultimate editor of content. If they are willing to do this, "what else are they doing in the background with my content and with my data?" This is an inevitable result of media monopolies, revealing a fundamental contempt for the very people who provide the platform's value.
This episode again stresses why it’s important to have free, uncensored platforms that respect the fundamental right of authors and publishers to control their own work.
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