YouTube Shorts viewers may soon see AI versions of their favorite creators when they scroll through their feeds. YouTube CEO Neal Mohan was announced on Wednesday that creators will soon be able to make Shorts using their own likeness.
“This year you’ll be able to create a Short using your own likeness, produce games with a simple text message, and experiment with music,” Mohan wrote in his annual letter. “Throughout this evolution, AI will remain a tool of expression, not a replacement.”
The shorts, which Mohan said now average 200 billion views daily, are one of YouTube’s most popular mediums. The company continues to invest in Shorts to maintain its ratings. While YouTube didn’t share additional details about these similarities, the new feature will join the platform’s current AI tools for Shorts, including the ability to create AI clips, AI stickers, AI auto-dubbing, and more.
YouTube will also equip creators with new tools to manage the use of their likeness in AI-generated content, according to Mohan.
While YouTube will allow creators to feature their own likeness in their videos, the Google-owned platform recently released technology to prevent others from using it. Last October, YouTube rolled out similarity detection technology to eligible creators to identify AI-generated content and display creators’ likeness, such as their face and voice. Creators can then request that the AI-generated content be removed.
As with other social media platforms, YouTube has dealt with the spread of artificial intelligence. Mohan says the company is working to maintain a high-quality viewing experience.
“Over the past 20 years, we’ve learned not to impose bias on the creator ecosystem,” said Mohan he wrote. “Today, once-weird trends like ASMR and watching other people play video games are successes. But with that openness comes the responsibility to maintain the high-quality viewing experience people want. To reduce the spread of low-quality AI content, we’re actively building on our established systems that have been very successful in combating spam and clickbait and reducing the spread of low-quality content.”
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YouTube is also set to expand Shorts with new formats, including image posts, which are already popular on TikTok and Instagram Reels.
