by Cindy Harper, Reclaim The Net:
Built in bias?
In an annual letter, YouTube’s new CEO Neal Mohan highlighted the video-sharing platform’s priorities for the year 2023. Among the priorities is exploring the opportunities that generative artificial intelligence can provide while also setting guidelines for its use.
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“The power of AI is just beginning to emerge in ways that will reinvent video and make the seemingly impossible possible,” Mohan wrote, adding that the platform would take time to come up with “thoughtful guardrails” for the use of AI features.
“Stay tuned in the coming months as we roll out tools for creators as well as the protections to embrace this technology responsibly,” he added.
“As we think through our product roadmap, we’re not just planning for the next few years. This is a critical moment in the creation of digital video, and we’re imagining what the future of creation will look like.”
Related: Biden signs executive order, instructing AI development to promote “equity”
Neal Mohan is a tech executive who is currently serving as the new CEO of YouTube, after former CEO Susan Wojcicki recently quit.
He joined Google in 2008 and has held various leadership positions within the company, including Senior Vice President of Display and Video Advertising Products and Vice President of Product Management.
Mohan would often promote and defend controversial YouTube policies while Wojcicki was CEO.
He repeatedly supported YouTube’s policy of artificially boosting so-called “authoritative” sources instead of the independent creators that helped to build the platform.
Mohan made one of his most infamous statements on this topic in 2020 when he said creators “espousing” opinions “in their basement” can’t provide context on the news. Mohan used this basement analogy to justify the importance of boosting “authoritative voices.”
In 2019, Mohan revealed that YouTube was working on its controversial “creator-on-creator harassment” rules. These rules resulted in creators being hit with harsh punishments for going “too far” with insults, mockery, and jokes.
