YouTube execs weigh in on AI security, Living Room app tweaks and Pat McAfee’s ESPN move

After YouTube announced new creator tools and product updates at its Made on YouTube event on Wednesday, CEO Neal Mohan stressed that security, especially in the context of updated AI tools, remains a “top priority” for the tech giant.

“YouTube is in a really unique space,” he explained during an onstage Q&A at the end of the event. “We can work closely with cutting-edge technologies that are being developed at YouTube, that are being developed at sister organizations like Google DeepMind.” The company has settled into a place where it’s “very gradually rolling out these technologies, rather than just releasing them and waiting to see what happens.”

As for the potential misuse of AI, Mohan continued: “It really is what it says in the name. It’s a tool. It’s about streamlining” the creative process.

In a separate interview with reporters after Mohan’s Q&A, senior executives were asked how AI tools would react if a creator types in “Kamala Harris,” for example. With weeks to go before the election, concerns remain high about the potential for deepfakes, or misleading images and videos, to sway the vote. (Politics, unsurprisingly, was not mentioned during the hour-and-a-half presentation.)

Chief business officer Mary Ellen Coe confirmed that “all of the things that creators create using the tools are subject to our community guidelines. So they will go through our same trust and safety systems.” She added that if the material is synthetically generated, “it is automatically flagged as such.”

Amjad Hanif, YouTube’s vice president of product management and fan funding, said that entering “Kamala Harris” into the tool will cause it to ask, “Does this result actually match something that already exists?” He explained: “We built the technology to be able to identify that something is actually a copycat or very similar to something that already exists, and we don’t want you to be creating things that already exist and other people’s intellectual property. Creators can create things across a broad spectrum. We generally allow creators to create and use the tools however they want, but the pressure and responsibility is on those creators to be thoughtful about what they create and what they put out. We have certain safeguards around things that we don’t want the tool to be used for. That line is always a little blurry and it’s something that we’re always defining.”

On a less sinister note, Coe was asked about the company’s efforts to get its creators recognized by the Television Academy with Emmy nominations. Mohan made the campaign a centerpiece of his remarks during the company’s annual Brandcast event for advertisers last May, underscoring the company’s confidence in the quality of its programming.

Ultimately, “we didn’t learn anything” from tubthumping, Coe said with a laugh. “We still believe they’re creating amazing content. I think of it as independent filmmaking and storytelling. With so many scripted and unscripted films being offered, “We think it’s all going to be embraced. The fans love it, and the committees are going to have to be mindful of that.”

Pat McAfee’s crossover success, she said, is “exhibit A” for the idea that YouTube creators’ content should be viewed in the same way as traditionally produced content. Coe said McAfee called her before signing a licensing deal with ESPN that allows the Disney-owned sports division to simultaneously air his popular YouTube show, as well as include the host in some of its other shows. The fact that his show has flourished on ESPN while remaining a major draw on YouTube is a testament to the evolution of media, Coe said.

“We were very supportive of him signing with ESPN. University Games Day was fantastic,” she said. “It’s a recognition of talent, that these independent artistic talents, creators, studios are able to find an audience. We’re the mechanism that connects them directly to their fans, and it doesn’t necessarily have to go through a studio. It’s a very simple concept.”

Coe and Hanif agreed that one of the major product updates announced at Made on YouTube — an update to the showroom app that will soon organize YouTube channels by season and episode — will also help the awards cause. That said, the company doesn’t plan to tip the scales and favor only a select few candidates by organizing the app in a certain way, they said. “We want new creators to continue to come in and be discovered, even if they’re not ready to be Emmy-worthy and episodic,” Hanif said.