Discovering out somebody has copied your YouTube movies is one factor. Discovering they’ve apparently used them to construct an AI creator that’s racked up greater than half 1,000,000 views is one other totally.

That’s the scenario guitarist and kit reviewer Rhett Shull not too long ago discovered himself in after discovering an AI-generated guitar channel that seems to have been constructed utilizing his content material as coaching materials, borrowing all the things from his previous studio setup and thumbnails to the general fashion of his movies whereas amassing greater than 600,000 views and over 5,000 subscribers.

Shull says he first realized in regards to the channel after being tagged by The Dangerous Guitarist Podcast on Instagram.

“I acquired tagged in a narrative by The Dangerous Guitarist Podcast. [It says] ‘This week, we check out an AI guitar YouTube channel that popped up within the final month and has over 5000 subs, 600,000 views, and a ton of feedback from unsuspecting viewers.’”

Curious, he clicked by means of, solely to find that the AI channel – Guitar Gems with Chase – was, in his phrases, “immediately ripping me off in a number of alternative ways”.

“I clicked on this final evening and actually was sort of freaked out,” he says.

In keeping with Shull, the similarities are onerous to disregard. The presenter seems in a studio designed to resemble the set Shull used earlier than shifting home in 2021, wears a jacket harking back to one he continuously sported on digital camera, and even options gear mirroring that seen in his older movies.

“There’s no query that that is somebody – some content material farm or some particular person someplace – who’s feeding my movies to some kind of AI and having it spit out this content material,” he says, earlier than joking, “I want I used to be as good-looking, although, as this man is!”

For Shull, the difficulty isn’t merely that his movies seem to have turn into AI coaching fodder. It’s the truth that viewers appear to consider the content material is real.

“These are actual folks which are watching this and considering that that is an precise video.”

The uploads additionally observe a well-known “rage-bait” system, with titles like Eight Guitars Solely Dumb Folks Purchase and thumbnails Shull says intently resemble his personal. The distinction, he argues, is that a few of these movies veer into outright misinformation.

“What this video is claiming is that an organization like Gibson or Fender and PRS and these different corporations are ripping you off as a result of they’re utilizing the identical machines and constructing the identical guitars however in China. It’s utterly improper data. It’s false.”

As a result of the movies are AI-generated, Shull believes they exist in a authorized gray space with little accountability.

“If I stated that stuff in a video, if I got here out and made these claims which are simply objectively false, I might be held accountable for slander or defamation as a result of I’m mendacity about an organization,” he says. “However as far as I perceive it, as a result of that is an AI creator and AI is totally unregulated right here in america, there are not any guidelines round these things, at the very least so far as I can inform. And YouTube clearly doesn’t appear to have an issue with it.”

Including to his frustration, Shull says the channel seems to be monetised and is even selling paid guitar programs, which means someone is benefiting from AI-generated content material constructed on his work.

“I’m going to file a takedown request with YouTube and report these movies as a result of clearly this shouldn’t exist,” he says. “The truth that that is allowed to occur on YouTube, the truth that the platform doesn’t instantly crack down on this AI generated slop actually sucks… and it doesn’t encourage a whole lot of confidence in me about the way forward for this platform.

“Individuals are watching this considering that it’s actual after which being funnelled to purchase a product that’s equally as pretend… somebody almost definitely in Brazil, from what I can inform, is earning profits off of this and YouTube is simply permitting it to occur.”

Whether or not YouTube in the end removes the channel stays to be seen (on the time of writing, it’s nonetheless reside on the platform), however Shull suspects he received’t be the final creator to search out their work repurposed as AI coaching materials.

“I really feel like it is a dropping battle. The higher these AI instruments get at making movies and creating this type of content material, the extra prevalent these sort of slop channels are going to be on the platform. And that sucks, man. That basically sucks.”

Watch the total video under.