Katarzyna Petru
YouTube has made subtle changes to some of the videos published on the platform without asking for the creators' consent. It's not about filters or intentional effects, but about corrections imposed from above by the platform. Creators have noticed that their content began to look "strangely artificial," which raises serious questions about trust in the authenticity of videos on the internet.
Rick Beato and the First Suspicions
Rick Beato, one of the most popular music YouTubers with over five million subscribers, was the first to notice that something was off. – “I thought my hair looked strange, like I had makeup on” – he recalls. After taking a closer look, he noticed unnaturally smoothed skin, sharper clothing, and distorted ears. The changes were subtle, but clearly present.
Rhett Shull: "It looks like AI"
Rhett Shull, another music creator, had similar experiences. His videos featured the same artifacts that he described as an effect of AI. - "If I wanted to overdo it with sharpness, I would do it myself. In this case, it looks like content generated by artificial intelligence. It undermines the authenticity of my work" - he emphasizes. His recording on the issue has already been viewed by over half a million people.
YouTube confirms the experiment
The first user comments on this topic appeared online back in June. After months of speculation, YouTube admitted that it is testing a new feature in Shorts – automatic noise reduction, sharpening, and image quality enhancement. As Rene Ritchie from YouTube explains, this is "an experiment with traditional machine learning, similar to what smartphones do when recording videos."
Lack of choice and growing concerns among experts
The difference is that in the case of a phone, the user decides for themselves whether they want to use such features. On YouTube, creators have no choice – the platform imposes changes from the top down. Samuel Wooley, a disinformation researcher, warns that this is content manipulation without the authors' knowledge. Experts point out that YouTube is trying to differentiate "machine learning" from generative AI, but it is just a play on words – in both cases, we are dealing with algorithmic interference in reality.
This is not the first time technology undermines the authenticity of images. Samsung has previously been caught artificially enhancing photos of the Moon, and Google Pixel offers a "Best Take" feature that creates the perfect shot from faces composed of different photos. The latest Pixel 10 also allows for 100x zoom, which the camera cannot actually achieve. According to critics, this is yet another step toward a world where it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish real images from those generated by AI.
Creators Divided
Although many YouTubers are sounding the alarm, some – like Rick Beato – are trying to approach the matter more calmly. – “YouTube changed my life. The fact that they are experimenting with new tools doesn’t surprise me. It’s a company that is always moving forward,” he summarizes. However, the problem remains: what will happen to our trust in reality when it is not the creators, but the algorithms that begin to decide what the world looks like on the screen?
