YouTube’s non-solution for AI podcasts

It is Hot capsule, The edge’s newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Register here for more.

Today we look at how YouTube’s new AI rules will (and won’t) affect podcasting, another late-night host ditching TV for audio, and a bunch of your recordings on podcasts covering the Israel-Hamas war.

This morning, YouTube released new terms regarding AI-generated content on its platform. Like my Edge colleagues Mia Sato and Nilay Patel reported that the company is creating a two-tier system in how it moderates this content: a strict set of rules for music and a looser, almost unenforceable standard for everything else (including podcasts). For creators who make podcasts using AI and people who might discover an AI-generated clone of their voice on the internet, there are some very slight new rules to follow.

First, podcasts that use “realistic” AI-generated (or edited) content must label their videos as such. This is something that’s already happening with some of the bigger podcasts that use AI, like with Joe Rogan’s AI experiment, but it’s generally good practice, so there’s no harm in forcing people to do it. Even with labeling, however, people can ask YouTube to remove videos that “simulate an identifiable person, including their face or voice.” This then depends on YouTube’s discretion, depending on factors such as whether the content is considered satire or whether the person reproduced is a public figure. Music, on the other hand, has no such exceptions, because YouTube has to satisfy the labels (if you can believe it, the podcast lobby is a little less influential).

These guidelines, which will be rolled out next year, are published in the absence of a real legal framework for dealing with AI-generated content. Even though it seems like YouTube’s attempt to do somethingits effectiveness is necessarily limited – and lack of clarity could lead to confusing and inconsistent enforcement decisions.

“It doesn’t have the weight of law, and it doesn’t have the benefit of being done in the open,” says attorney Emily Poler, who handles copyright infringement cases. author. “There are going to be situations where it’s really difficult [for YouTube] make a decision in principle, and those [decisions] will be assigned to a reasonably low-level employee at YouTube. I don’t think that’s a recipe for success.

Moderation was already a disaster for these platforms before AI got involved, and each takes a different approach. Even if Spotify is rather permissive (and even encouraging!) of AI spoken content, Audible has a general rule against AI-narrated audiobooks. YouTube appears to be attempting a middle ground. I’ll be curious to see how this plays out when the new AI rules are in place. As always, if you see anything weird, contact me.

Last year at Hot Pod Summit LA, we hosted a panel with Team Coco on the premise that as late-night shows lose relevance, their hosts (much like Conan O’Brien) will turn to podcasts instead. Since then, Trevor Noah has left The daily show and I made a deal with Spotify, and James Corden LEFT The late show and will soon launch a show with SiriusXM. Now, another former late-night host has a podcast deal: Daniel Tosh.

Tosh Show from iHeartMedia is refreshingly not a celebrity interview show, which makes sense! Tosh.0 was a hit at the time because it was the opposite of standard late-night fare, tapping into YouTube’s lowbrow culture instead of featuring fluffy interviews with the rich and famous. If you’re too young to remember or too old to care, it was a big deal circa 2009-2012. (Sidebar, I was really shocked to learn that Tosh.0 only ended in 2020). Since stupid internet videos don’t exactly translate to podcasting, Tosh’s first interview is with his wife’s gynecologist. Respect!

Who will be next late night? My money is on Jon Stewart, whose Apple TV Plus show was canceled last month. The podcast has consistently outperformed the show, and it would be relatively easy to continue without Apple’s support.

You gotta love the way the Hot capsule the public is always armed with recordings. After my open call for suggestions, a number of you suggested shows that approach this extremely complicated conflict with nuance. I had the chance to listen to a few and revisit some that I hadn’t listened to in a while. Check it out:

• The Ezra Klein Show, by Think again host Jason Gots (and Vox staffers and various members of my family). It’s a compelling choice for a reason: Klein dedicated several episodes of his show to exploring the conflict from different angles, including a significant episode in which he speaks with pollster Amaney Jamal, who conducted a public opinion survey in Gaza in the week before the attack. Spoiler: Gazans are not very attached to Hamas.
• History of Israel, as recommended by Podglomerate CEO Jeff Umbro. You may remember History of Israel — who is basically Israeli This American life – when it was presented on Radiolab in 2015. In the weeks following the start of the war, History of Israel has published two dozen accounts Israelis on how the conflict has affected their lives.
• In the nose And Unstable are recommended by audio producer Sam J. Leeds. In the nose comes from a gradual release Jewish currents and covered anti-war activism left in Israel and the United States. Unstable — which is sponsored by the Institute for Nonprofit News and was started by activists involved in IfNotNow – regularly features stories from Palestinians and is published an episode last week on the escalation of violence in the West Bank since the start of the war.
• Ungodly: two Jews in the newsaccording to Sandra Shmueli, development editor at The Economist. It is hosted by Keshet 12 news anchor Yonit Levi and The Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland. So far this is my favorite of the bunch – I particularly enjoyed his most recent episode with Kara Swisher on how war discourse plays out on TikTok.

Keep the recs coming! Especially if you know some excellent pods produced from the Palestinian perspective.

That’s all for the moment. I’ll be back next week with the latest audio news.