I Challenged AI to Create a Better YouTube Channel Than Me... Here's What Happened

To try everything Brilliant has to offer-free-for a full 30 days, visit brilliant.org/adumb/. The first 200 of you will get 20% off Brilliant’s annual premium subscription.
Code from my videos available at: github.com/sponsors/adumb-codes/
Twitter: / adumb_codes
In this video I created an AI automated KZbin channel to compete against a human run KZbin channel to see which channel could get more views and subscribers in a month.
AI Channel: @TheDailyQuotation
Human Channel: @Quotables_
This video was sponsored by Brilliant
#ai

[@adumb_codes]

To try everything Brilliant has to offer-free-for a full 30 days, visit brilliant.org/adumb/. The first 200 of you will get 20% off Brilliant’s annual premium subscription.

[@martinwyke]

There's a certain irony that YouTude named you @Human-279

[@MrKingToilet]

Sup!

[@josiah42]

Importantly, this kind of long-form high quality thoughtful analysis can't even be produced by most people much less an AI.

[@fergalhennessy775]

ive seen ai shorts with 1000x the views of this video though

[@luminosity8024]

@@fergalhennessy775 tis luck in the algorithm

[@silviocupica2521]

​@@fergalhennessy775They are talking about quality, not success

[@fergalhennessy775]

@@silviocupica2521 nobody goes to yt shorts for quality lil bro

[@Dismuth]

@@fergalhennessy775 You agree with him and then call him lil bro? ok kid

[@luggilu7864]

Plot twist, it turns out that adumb himself is an extremely sophisticated ai.

[@jellyplays100]

Yes

[@bigoof.look.at.my.desc.]

_audible gasp_

[@box_speedruns]

Yes

[@1_in_8billion]

Yes

[@idk-ot5nb]

Yes

[@felix56p]

dude getting a sponsor in just your fifth ever video is such a huge flex

[@Trifect69420]

Brilliant basically sponsors any educational channel lol

[@dragonifyamazing2721]

@@Trifect69420 to be honest you are accurate. I have seen Brillant sponsorships from other educational channel. Not as much flex.

[@leftysheppey]

Actually nuts that you managed to get nearly 500 subscribers in a month on an AI channel

[@leftysheppey]

@@youbetyourwrasse if you like the content then what's the issue?

[@orterves]

People love junk food.

[@thedistinguished5255]

thats how much subs i got on my youtube channel that i put weekly effort into between ages 14 and 17. not that im jealous or anything..

[@leftysheppey]

@@thedistinguished5255 tbf, short form content is a much easier way to get subs than long form

[@GravyMustard]

Nuts 😋

[@PlaaasmaMC]

Congrats on getting sponsored already, your projects are awesome

[@Longbonglongdong]

I'm sure I've come across a few of your reels before on youtube 😂😂

[@orterves]

It's a real fight to get the algorithm to stop suggesting ai generated garbage

[@icyboyy6177]

On KZbin they are called shorts 🤓☝️

[@zalox12]

​@@icyboyy6177nice face reveal.

[@elixpo]

Dude, you your creations are really next level man!

[@aneski]

Don't think I really understood just how accessible this has all come when you can automate entire channels with AI already. Really interesting video and great motivation for me to continue studying Python :D

[@yougeo]

Uhhh...you get the AI to run python. You don't write it yourself.

[@opposing]

​@@yougeo You do write yourself the code, the AWS instance he created didnt appear magically

[@Asterism_Desmos]

This was a very interesting idea and the execution was amazing. Good video!

[@MrCasulu]

Very, very insightful analysis of a “real life” experiment, comparing the performance of an LLM versus a human. My take is that currently LLMs excel on quantity with “good enough quality “, but LLMs do not seem capable of “excellent” or “brilliant” performance. That conclusion looks intuitive to me: when I look at the output of any of the LLMs I’ve tested so far, I do get something that looks as the “average opinion/knowledge” of what I see on the internet using a search engine. Thinking about how LLMs operate, this is what I expect: the tokens with the highest probability are those that are found most often on the internet (this is also the cause for bias). Thus, documents published by exceptional people (let’s say, some genius) will receive a very low probability of being generated by the LLM. Anyway, I really enjoyed a lot this video, and I surely be looking for your future videos.

[@kylebroflovski6382]

LLM's (unintentionally) are an exceptional way of representing the collective unconscious of WEIRD countries (Westernized, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) and GPT 4 manifests this intangible "average" pretty eloquently. The problem with this lies in the famous quote by Schopenhauer: "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." Which is to say that yes, until the gears of society shift to accept the currently exceptional as codified and self-evident, the exceptional will remain fringe and speculative - outside the radar of LLM's. Although the same (speculative and fringe) attributes can be assigned to the unfalsifiable ramblings of a conspiracy theorist. The benefit of humans is that we can physically test hypothesis in the real world and receive actual feedback and experience, and this is what differentiates genius from actual insanity: truth - both in terms of accuracy, precision, and frequency. The point here is that to excel in excellence or brilliance, an AI (or AGI, to be more precise) would need to: 1. Be able to interact with the outside world and receive appliable feedback and experience from those interactions. 2. Be able to transfer that feedback to different (or unique, if taken one step further) scenarios, in essence mimicking the executive function and higher-level cognition of humans. (GPT 4 can already do the former, to an extent.) 3. Push boundaries and consequently face doubt, mockery, ridicule, or even violent opposition from the conclusions it generates. Speaking of speculation, since we're on the subject of hypothetical future AGI, I feel it helps to have a rough idea of the difference between consensus truth, empirical truth, and axiomatic truth. In my opinion fields like psychology, political science, ethics, economics, etc are too "fuzzy" for AI to have an opinion on, or to try to influence - at least until we have a complete mapping of the human brain and can understand more empirically how the brain works in its entirety. Until then its genius should remain confined to pushing the envelope on empirical and axiomatic truth.

[@bryanbischof4351]

Great video. I really appreciate the approach and thoroughness

[@someone5781]

This is a real gem of a channel. I love seeing this content, and you really inspire me to work on some cool hacks like this too!

[@that.dawson]

This channel is really cool, man! Looking forward to seeing what you do next!

[@g-program-it]

nicely done, showing pros and cons of an automated channel with actual data

[@HelloIAmAnExist]

Plot twist: this is the ai channel

[@bigoof.look.at.my.desc.]

_audible gasp_

[@Krilium]

We need to all band together to agree on a protocol when we come across an AI video. Either instantly scroll past, or dislike and then scroll past.

[@hexyellow9873]

I usually block the AI channel and then scroll past the video.

[@moth.monster]

Honestly, using a script for editing but doing actual voiceover and research would split the difference on what matters.

[@pokepress]

Yeah, there’s probably an ideal intersection that maximizes the benefits of both approaches.

[@macro144p]

This is like a mathematical proof for the dead internet theory. I think of it being like checkers. Yes, checkers is a solved game mathematically, but we still haven't mapped out all moves. Thus, it still requires plenty of skill to play and be good at it.

[@artrix909]

this is extremely interesting! keep up the good work

[@lukibukiboy4892]

A really neat video idea!!! Love your channel! Keep going!

[@fkarg10]

might be worth re-doing this experiment now with GPT4 and more sophisticated tools overall

[@Nyx__]

2:04 The first suggestion from GPT reads like it's telling people "Don't go towards death. Become Death for others." Is it suggesting people should kill others? LMAOO

[@Vedranation]

dude this was such interesting and high quality video, well done

[@Keyw]

Great video. Horribly depressing.

[@ZlectroTMTeamAzerty]

We are clearly doomed

[@mummyjohn]

the opportunity to find something inspiring, and yet you go for depressing.

[@gavine2363]

Only if people decide computer > human

[@oberonpanopticon]

@@gavine2363Obviously it has already been decided

[@ThePenisMan]

@@mummyjohn what’s inspiring about people subscribing to dumb shit Not everything needs a positive spin and that’s coming from someone who despises cynicism

[@TheRealMangoDev]

BUT YOU COULD JUST REQUEST the quotable api so it generates a random quote each time.

[@nxmee]

Based on the diagram in the "complete automation" section, that's exactly what they did

[@akbar.n]

Amazingly implemented.

[@crizpycheese8287]

This guy rocks! Amazing video

[@you-are-the-tharpsters]

Clipclamp or whatever it’s called is useful because it can make short videos using stock footage and it already has a voice and it adds music

[@ahmedyousif4782]

Bro your channel is really interesting, you have high quality informative content, and I know how hard and time consuming it is

[@NiMareQ]

Very useful experiment!

[@guard13007]

... I swear to god I've seen the short you showed in this video. (Specifically the quote one..)

[@poi2587]

Incredible video, deserves more attention

[@charlesmoxey8122]

Really facinating. Also, i've got an idea. Maybe if you were to make some human made content for some time, you can reach the monetization threshold and continue automation from there.

[@SirioResteghini]

I can't find it, but I remember that KZbin had something in the terms of service against automated content (or perhaps against monetizing it). It's possible I misremember, but even if I do I think KZbin would be likely to add something like that to its TOS if purely automated content had the potential to go viral.

[@nathanielguggenheim5522]

Prtobably them Simps working there have no way to detect it.

[@asdads3948]

It would probably be good for everyone... except youtube. What's the difference from youtubes pov? They have content that generates views. Why would they care if it is human or AI generated?

[@Lewtable]

@@asdads3948 Probably reducing bloat on the servers? The problem isn't that they get a couple of viral bot channels that make them money, the problem are the millions upon millions of bot channels that do nothing but take up space on their servers. Because lets be real here, if you can fully automate a channel people won't just have one channel. There will be bot farms with 100+ channels constantly uploading junk content daily that all belong to the same group of people, multiply that by many groups doing the same thing and the situation can quickly become unsustainable. Banning fully automated channels from receiving money won't stop all channels, as there probably would be loopholes but it will stop a lot of people from even attempting it.

[@JamesRockefeller45]

Man i hope you make it because i love the content

[@somerandomperson834]

You're the NileRed of programming lol

[@DavidN172]

bro the voice is literally the exact same

[@gionas361]

this was very interesting, good video

[@Rubricube]

You should try whisper for the transcription, worked well for me

[@you-are-the-tharpsters]

5:13 pov gen alpha: yay

[@WeGoToMars]

Awesome video, as a dev myself I was wondering if it's possible to create something like this. Hope you will make it on this chanel with more interesting projects!

[@DevinSloan]

Tuvok was a great choice for the voice over AI.

[@sandervandeneynden253]

This is the beginning of the dead internet theory

[@jakob6271]

You could run the experiment a second time with completely new channels but incorporating everything learned from the first run. After introducing the new style of quote of the day videos on the ai channel, it gained a significant boost in subscribers. Restarting the experiment, you could try to investigate how helpful this boost was in the long term.

[@iasliam]

This was so good! Thanks for making this

[@hobrin4242]

I think some kind of combination would rock though

[@deathracoffee]

Man flexing he can make a large yt channel from scratch, but chooses to stay with this format for his integrity, hats off

[@Yuvraj.]

Seems like this vid couldn't hack it in the algo but I really enjoyed it.

[@mentalyunstable2872]

3:10 “ass=subtitles.ass” 😂

[@NateLevin]

Great video!

[@ghasttastic1912]

ai replaced the prayer service reflection at my school. not even religion is safe from the ai apocalypse

[@chienbanane3168]

Wow, this is such an interesting experiment! I love how you've created two distinct channels to compare the success they would achieve. It's fascinating to see the combination of handmade videos and AI-generated content in action. Both approaches have their own unique qualities and advantages. The handmade videos bring a personal touch and creativity that can truly resonate with viewers. The effort, time, and craftsmanship involved in creating them can be appreciated, and it adds an element of authenticity to the content. On the other hand, the AI-generated channel offers a different perspective, leveraging the power of technology to generate intriguing quotes and facts. It's amazing to witness how AI can contribute to content creation. I'm excited to see the results of this experiment and discover which channel garners more success. It's a great opportunity to explore the preferences of the audience and understand the impact of different content creation methods. Kudos to you for pushing the boundaries and exploring new avenues in content creation. Keep up the fantastic work, and I'll be eagerly following both channels to see how they progress! (Written by ChatGPT)

[@11skylars]

underrated video good job ur very cool subbed

[@andrewm8377]

Simply brilliant!

[@radiospd]

how does this only have 8k views 😭😭😭 this deserves millions fr

[@maxmillard3161]

Plot twist this video was made by AI

[@michak5vods32]

Youre still underrated as hell

[@Avighna]

Btw a tip for this videos thumbnail: include some text like ‘can AI beat a human?’ in it, really anything related to the videos topic that is decently clickbait-y. I think this will increase the amount of views you’ll get by quite a lot.

[@Tferdz]

What if you create 10+ accounts to play the lottery youtube game in the attempt one go viral? (each account would have a different video, but the same style)

[@BidgkShen]

Google's "I'm feeling curious" is a really nice fun fact generator

[@ronvanwegen]

Fun Fact: This video was automated.

[@JamesRockefeller45]

You could vastly improve the ai videos just by using better ai music and ai voice just with the huge improvement in ai since this video came out

[@cloudboy08]

Amazing vid

[@kocktailbar9540]

The king has returned

[@Dunskies118]

Your content is top notch, keep going and growing my guy.

[@andrewdavid86]

I hope you try again with the new ChatGPT-4o together with whisper. Curious what the results could be and if they'll be any different.

[@maxguam4830]

Came here after watching your Wikipedia video…I think I just lost the rest of the workday to catching up on your channel 😂

[@my2cents2u]

same

[@loqkLoqkson]

do the youtube analytics tell you how many people click "don't recommend channel" it would be in interesting metric to compare for the human vs ai content if you can. I hit "don't recommend channel" for a lot of automated content, since the content isn't good, and the AI readers still don't seem to get sentence structure properly. They can't emphasise words correctly in a sentence, which is particularly maddening when they try to read stories.

[@KevinOMalleyisonlysmallreally]

You've earned a sub

[@fayeinoue7455]

you were so concerned with whether or not you could, you never stopped to consider whether or not you should

[@andrewsolesbury115]

Automation does not equal AI and I think that is a big distinction here. You could easily create a human written channel that utilises the automation techniques to speed up the video creation, creating multiple videos in a day and then scheduling them for the whole week. The success of both channels is a testament to your skills in creating the content template and themes.

[@cariyaputta]

Do you plan on doing the experiment with long form contents?

[@Help-Rubikscubemaster029]

Bro the volume just went up for some reason on my phone and its loud AF

[@gerdhuebner2848]

Which video editing tool do you use to make your KZbin videos on this channel? :)

[@almitydave]

I would have liked to know how much the AWS cost for that pipeline was. I'm guessing not that much.

[@GodmyX]

Now, this seems as a cool channel!

[@DJEevee257]

What I got from this: Using automation to speed up the editing process is more effective than letting an AI make the entire video

[@thedistinguished5255]

were the Only Up clips royalty free, or did you take them from some random streamers? i guess if you really wanted to automate it you could also have a robot play the game

[@denzblog2710]

This is weirdly dystopian

[@suspicioussand]

Good luck 🙏

[@a.k.8725]

I feel like this kind of stuff would work better with reddit stories rather than quotes.

[@MovingPixelsArt]

Try making the ai auto post videos and bulk post like hundreds of them

[@Lucy27386]

I think it would also be fair to give AI feedback in numbers of views so it can improve its videos somehow. I suppose it would be hard, but maybe then it would have some viral videos and thousands of views.

[@Henrix1998]

Monetising shorts is actually damn hard, Google is keeping so much money

[@Raccoon5]

I did the same thing, but I quickly realized it would cost quite a bit of money and probably never generate it back. How much money did this experiment cost?

[@LiborTinka]

However, subs/views doe not necessarily mean "better" ... That's a super-loaded word and a juicy, cool, uplifting and informative channel is something very different from an addictive collage.

[@SliceOfFish]

Did you consider using OpenAI API to avoid manually interacting with ChatGPT?

[@breadbug.]

Kweblekop is taking notes

[@iimeddzxx4041]

here's a better idea for this project : if you upload one good quality human made video once a week and let the ai make two videos everyday this will make people get subscribed to you from the quality video while watching the ai videos so ur channel doesn't become idle this way the youtube algorithm will get your videoes suggested much more.

[@svenmify]

If you wanted to make the AI part a bit smarter, train it to optimise both views and subs, and adjust its content accordingly

[@junosprite007]

After sponsoring, can we use your code for profit? Is your code under Apache 2.0. How does that work?

[@roberthumphrey5119]

you should redo this video at some point in the future to see whats changed as more AI tools become available and existing ones get better (or worse in some cases)

[@dimalisovyk5277]

It shouldn't be one or another. We should take the best of both worlds. We can come up with the creative and original ideas and use AI tooling to speed up the production process

[@xX_dash_Xx]

I wish you had given the actual amount of money you made from each channel... that is an important piece of the puzzle

[@annikala]

This is awesome

[@mummyjohn]

The conclusions about quality by each method are unsurprising, though I'm inclined to think that the relative effort required far more than makes up for the difference, no? Your graphs at 11:38 seem to bear this out. If the goal was strictly to monetize from youtube directly, indeed this isn't a useful structure, but then monetizing from youtube directly is a pretty foolish goal IMO. I'd think building a regular audience that can then be leveraged elsewhere (merchandising? creating a consumer/email list for something else?) is a better way to go. Curious your (or anyone's) thoughts.

[@AnwarulIslamYT]

A pretty interesting stuff. Your content is really awesome

[@ptyw.]

you totally shouldve ended the video with: "So, how did I do? Did I make you think this was a human?"

[@Nossody]

You think AI could go through my 300GB of sweet shadowplay clips and make shorts with each one?

[@februalist4686]

You became my favorite youtube channel