The technology industry has long believed that if a feature can be built, it should be built, and that any concerns about its implications can be addressed afterward, perhaps in a future software update.
YouTube's latest addition to its Shorts Remix feature follows this well-worn path. The tool, which has existed in various forms since late 2023, now incorporates Google's Gemini artificial intelligence to let users transform other creators' videos into something new — remixed, reshaped, and potentially unrecognizable. A small icon at the bottom of the screen is all that separates a creator's carefully constructed work from becoming raw material for someone else's experiment.
The company, which is part of the Alphabet empire, did not respond to a request for comment about the feature, a silence that speaks its own language.
Proponents of the tool describe it in the optimistic vocabulary that accompanies most platform announcements. Jacquie Kostuk, vice president of strategy at the advertising agency Fuse Create, noted that the feature includes watermarks and links back to original content. "It allows creators to opt out from remixes to, fingers crossed, control their likeness and IP," Ms. Kostuk said. The phrase "fingers crossed" does considerable work in that sentence.
Jonathan Chanti, chief executive of Reign Maker Group, said the tool could "extend the lifespan and reach" of creators' content. He also acknowledged what he called "potential issues around misinformation, brand safety, sponsorship conflicts, audience trust and ownership of identity." (One imagines the legal department nodding along.)
The opt-out mechanism has drawn particular scrutiny. Creators must manually disable remixing for each individual Short they post — a design choice that places the burden of protection on those being protected. "If you have to opt out to stop your content from being used, that's not consent," said Donatas Smailys, chief executive of the creator marketing platform Billo.
Frank Poe, an attorney whose firm represents creators, raised a wrinkle that YouTube's product teams may not have fully considered: content generated through Gemini could itself trigger the platform's copyright infringement rules, potentially putting users at odds with the very terms of service they agreed to when they signed up.
Regulators, moving at their customary pace, are beginning to catch up. New York State's Synthetic Performer Disclosure Law takes effect on June 9, with California and the European Union following in August.
For now, most brands and creators appear to be treating wholly AI-generated content the way one treats an unfamiliar dish at a dinner party: with polite interest and no intention of actually consuming it. A study from Billion Dollar Boy found that 58 percent of creators are exploring copyright protection for their faces, identities, and voices — a statistic that would have seemed bizarre even five years ago, and now seems merely prudent.
Original story published in Digiday: "YouTube's AI remix push exposes a looming reckoning for the creator economy"