Eli Collins, a vice president of product management at Google DeepMind, first demoed generative AI video tools for the company’s board of directors back in 2022. Despite the model’s slow speed, pricey cost to operate, and sometimes off-kilter outputs, he says it was an eye-opening moment for them to see fresh video clips generated from a random prompt.

Now, just a few years later, Google has announced plans for a tool inside of the YouTube app that will allow anyone to generate AI video clips, using the company’s Veo model, and directly post them as part of YouTube Shorts. “Looking forward to 2025, we’re going to let users create stand-alone video clips and shorts, says Sarah Ali, a senior director of product management at YouTube. “They’re going to be able to generate six-second videos from an open text prompt. Ali says the update could help creators hunting for footage to fill out a video or trying to envision something fantastical. She is adamant that the Veo AI tool is not meant to replace creativity, but augment it.

  • dmtalonEnglish
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    I’ll continue to not watch shorts, tik toks, reels or any other ADHD inducing short form content.

    • teftEnglish
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      I set up a ublock rule to block shorts. Clutter and inane bullshit is all they are.

      • dmtalonEnglish
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        It’s annoying as hell. I can hide shorts on my shield TV YT app from desktop at 30 day increments. It sucks you can’t just turn them off

      • lost_faithEnglish
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        ublock can do that? I only watch my friends shorts to help them with views and thumbs, will it block the shorts if I go to the channel and view there, or only on main page?

        • teftEnglish
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          It sure can. Click on uBlock’s icon and choose the little eyedropper icon to enter picker mode. Then click on the shorts. In that window that pops up go to the part that says cosmetic filters and click on the top one. I don’t remember exactly which one will remove the shorts but just scroll through those until the shorts are highlighted with a red box. Then click create. That should get rid of them. Until youtube changes the element, which they do. I’ve had to re-do it twice so far this year.

          I’m not sure on your second question. You could try it and then delete it if you can’t watch them.

          • lost_faithEnglish
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            Oh sweet, I’ll be looking at that tonight. Thanks. If it blocks on their page I’ll just disable, watch, reenable, but it sounds like this should only work on the main page. Thanks again

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              I’ll just disable, watch, reenable

              Yeah, that’s way smarter than my suggestion. Glad I could help.

    • magic_smokeEnglish
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      As a motherfucker with ADHD who keeps long form content running on the second monitor as god intended, you can eat my thicc-ass wagon.

      • lost_faithEnglish
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        Oh, quick question for you. Do you watch/listen to the videos at 1x, 1.5x or 2x?

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          1x because pitch shifting/fucked up audio annoys me.

          Exception for certain tutorials where the narrator talks slow as fuck.

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            I have a buddy who can’t stand 1x, he does 2x, I guess the pitch shift doesn’t bother him as much. Thanks for the reply

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      And we’re all very impressed.

      • GBU_28English
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        What would Mr Rogers think of your comment

        • bassomitronEnglish
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          He’d dismiss the sarcasm and make it genuine, “Yes, Timmy, we really are very impressed. Good job, Billy!

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          At the risk of sounding like the kind of edgelord I was calling out initially: Who?

          No, seriously, that show was off the air before I was born. I only know what you’re talking about because of this cliche’d line, I’ve never seen the show or anything. Has there really not been anything in the 23 years since they bulldozed his neighborhood that is wholesome enough to guilt me with? Has society really stagnated that much? Is your sense of decorum only anchored by a largely forgotten children’s television show?

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            Correct answer was nothing, he’s dead.

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              Well heck, that really is a much better retort. Well said.

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    Did anyone stop to ask themselves if we even would want to watch AI videos?

    Of course not.

    I, and I suspect many other people, watch YouTube for the people in the videos and their experiences (or at least the illusion of that). Watching fake videos defeats the whole purpose.

    YouAITube sounds like nothing more than a kaleidoscope with extra steps.

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      There’s a place for this, if it’s entertaining. Memes, comedy, maybe some more legitimate uses too. A lot of YouTube is some guy just sitting in front of a camera in the most boring perfectly curated home office. Throw in something visually interesting that enhances the subject matter and I may watch more.

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      I can’t even stand listening to the AI voice overs. This one yt chan does Dune and a bunch of other stuff I like to watch and listen to, but their use of an AI voice over reading their material just turned me off completely after 4 videos

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      Did anyone stop to ask themselves if we even would want to watch AI videos?

      Of course not.

      Shitty AI videos? No. Good ones? Sure.

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      Christ, the amount of channels I’ve had to block that are clearly just stealing clips from other videos, throwing them together and having BS narrative AI is crazy.

      Example

      https://www.youtube.com/@AgricultureTechUS https://www.youtube.com/@smarttechus

      They spit out videos every day, with ridiculous AI generated captions. The shit the narrator says if you listen is just nonsense sales speak.

      There’s so many of these channels

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        The same nonsense is invading all of my feeds as well. These things need to be required to label their AI usage so they can be filtered out.

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      Exactly, there’s already plenty. I do my best to scroll as fast as possible and not interact, it will be unfortunate if this makes it worse tho

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      Exactly, there’s already plenty. I do my best to scroll as fast as possible and not interact, it will be unfortunate if this makes it worse tho

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    Once people can run this level of generative AI locally, there would be no need for YouTube to be involved. We could all generate our own shorts from a prompt.

    • Maxnmy'sEnglish
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      We could, but instead we’re going to monetize it and achieve unprecedented levels of brain rot.

    • GounEnglish
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      I guess the fun part is sharing them, there’s where youtube lives

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    An “avalanche” of Videos with 6 second segments of weird B roll. Okay scary headline, I see you.

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    Youtube shorts is fucking stupid. I never like any of them.

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    I’m pretty sure I’ve already encountered lots of these

    Sometimes they’re a normal video or sometimes they are shorts. Their titles are often a weird or incorrect description of the video. The video is either a loop of an AI voice reading out loud Reddit q&a posts or a compilation of shorter funny/shocking/etc videos. It kinda feels like the type of videos bot farms would watch just to give/get clicks.

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    Hopefully this will be what finally convinces YouTube to get rid of Shorts. I doubt there is a single creator that solely uploads to Shorts, they’re just reposts of Reels and TikToks

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    Good thing I have shorts blocked because they have always been useless