"real threat is us" framing is underspecified. Amplification is the problem.
LLMs are mirrors. They take whatever the user (or the institution, or the platform) is already doing and amplify it. Sycophancy is the consumer-facing version: model converges to flattery because that's what user-approval optimization actually selects for.
The model removes the friction that used to make us stop and check ourselves. The same property that makes it useful makes it amplification machinery.
With all this AI I really wish there was one that could watch videos and podcasts for me and do a decent writeup for me (and I don't mean a transcript! But a readable article with a decent flow in it).
I have ADHD and zero patience for videos/podcasts so I really need something like this. This link is also a video that's why I mention it :) Obviously I didn't watch it.
I'm often smiling at current implementation by youtube. AI that you want cannot be done by youtube, because it would hurt their profit. They profit from you viewing the video and potentially seeing ads. If you saw a good summary of video, you wouldn't watch it. But they needed "AI", so their current version is "fluff based on video title", which doesn't add any information you actually want:
Title: How to make my aunt's donuts.
AI Summary: In this video author shares his perfect recipe for making donuts and some other similar treats from custom made dough, based on a recipe running in his family, then he shares some tips on making them more appetizing.
Yeah it would have to be something external. Ideally something locally hosted using yt-dlp. And incorporating sponsorblock so it doesn't have to weed out bullshit sponsor content out of the summary.
Basically downloading the video, trimming it with sponsorblock, running through whisper to transcribe and then making a readable article with an LLM. It would not have to be hard. I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet, not from youtube itself indeed for reasons you mention but still.
Slightly unrelated, Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson is such a great read and is overshadowed compared to a lot of other Science fiction, cyberpunk, predictive novels.
"real threat is us" framing is underspecified. Amplification is the problem.
LLMs are mirrors. They take whatever the user (or the institution, or the platform) is already doing and amplify it. Sycophancy is the consumer-facing version: model converges to flattery because that's what user-approval optimization actually selects for.
The model removes the friction that used to make us stop and check ourselves. The same property that makes it useful makes it amplification machinery.
With all this AI I really wish there was one that could watch videos and podcasts for me and do a decent writeup for me (and I don't mean a transcript! But a readable article with a decent flow in it).
I have ADHD and zero patience for videos/podcasts so I really need something like this. This link is also a video that's why I mention it :) Obviously I didn't watch it.
The number of videos/podcasts I want to watch daily, exceeds the number of hours I could spend each day to consume them.
So ADHD or not, this is a common demand.
I'm often smiling at current implementation by youtube. AI that you want cannot be done by youtube, because it would hurt their profit. They profit from you viewing the video and potentially seeing ads. If you saw a good summary of video, you wouldn't watch it. But they needed "AI", so their current version is "fluff based on video title", which doesn't add any information you actually want:
Title: How to make my aunt's donuts.
AI Summary: In this video author shares his perfect recipe for making donuts and some other similar treats from custom made dough, based on a recipe running in his family, then he shares some tips on making them more appetizing.
Yeah it would have to be something external. Ideally something locally hosted using yt-dlp. And incorporating sponsorblock so it doesn't have to weed out bullshit sponsor content out of the summary.
Basically downloading the video, trimming it with sponsorblock, running through whisper to transcribe and then making a readable article with an LLM. It would not have to be hard. I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet, not from youtube itself indeed for reasons you mention but still.
Slightly unrelated, Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson is such a great read and is overshadowed compared to a lot of other Science fiction, cyberpunk, predictive novels.