Poisoning AI Summaries with ASS
January 23, 2025 4:38 AM Subscribe
YouTuber f4mi (previously) has had issues with people using AI summarisers to rip off her videos, so she devised a way to do some tomfoolery leveraging a little-known subtitle format: .ass. [YouTube, ~18m]
(Note that the UK subtitle track rather than the default US is the one with all the tricks, as some older phones were crashing due to the sheer scale of tomfoolery going on.)
Bonus: ASS file format specification.
(Note that the UK subtitle track rather than the default US is the one with all the tricks, as some older phones were crashing due to the sheer scale of tomfoolery going on.)
Bonus: ASS file format specification.
This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's request -- travelingthyme
Yeah, I was trying to figure out why her subtitles were styled the other day - I don't think I've seen styled subs on any other youtube video, ever, but this explains it.
posted by Kyol at 6:03 AM on January 23 [1 favorite]
posted by Kyol at 6:03 AM on January 23 [1 favorite]
"I have to figure out a way to tigger audio hallucinations without making them obnoxious to humans"
You and me both
posted by hovey at 6:20 AM on January 23 [13 favorites]
You and me both
posted by hovey at 6:20 AM on January 23 [13 favorites]
"like the scientist I am not …" was where I started laughing and almost didn't recover.
She is my new hero.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 6:42 AM on January 23 [5 favorites]
She is my new hero.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 6:42 AM on January 23 [5 favorites]
Yeah, if you haven't watched any of her videos before, they're all pretty incredible - well produced, well researched, just slightly on the edge of madness that's a nice change from the usual dry youtube histories.
I had to keep pausing to explain to my wife why I was laughing out loud repeatedly during the video about the Logitech G15 keyboard. "Ok, so back in uh like 2006 or so there was this Swedish artist Basshunter who did a song about sitting in Ventrilo (god, remember that?) playing DotA, now I mean the original Warcraft DotA, not the new DotA, and that's how the video started, and here f4mi is just... doing it. As a 10 second gag."
posted by Kyol at 7:24 AM on January 23 [1 favorite]
I had to keep pausing to explain to my wife why I was laughing out loud repeatedly during the video about the Logitech G15 keyboard. "Ok, so back in uh like 2006 or so there was this Swedish artist Basshunter who did a song about sitting in Ventrilo (god, remember that?) playing DotA, now I mean the original Warcraft DotA, not the new DotA, and that's how the video started, and here f4mi is just... doing it. As a 10 second gag."
posted by Kyol at 7:24 AM on January 23 [1 favorite]
AI poisioning will be the hot topic in 2025. And I'm all for it.
LWN.net (a Linux kernel discussion area) has been swamped with AI bots making so many requests that it's now a denial-of-service attack. None of these crawlers are obeying the robots.txt file or any other flags to keep them away.
If you're interested in deploying your own defenses and/or just fucking with these asshole companies, Nepenthes and Quixotic are good places to start.
Maddox and Gibson's 'black ICE' can't come soon enough.
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:43 AM on January 23 [7 favorites]
LWN.net (a Linux kernel discussion area) has been swamped with AI bots making so many requests that it's now a denial-of-service attack. None of these crawlers are obeying the robots.txt file or any other flags to keep them away.
If you're interested in deploying your own defenses and/or just fucking with these asshole companies, Nepenthes and Quixotic are good places to start.
Maddox and Gibson's 'black ICE' can't come soon enough.
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:43 AM on January 23 [7 favorites]
I started watching TFV and had to stop less than 25% of the way through. Far enough to see the thesis statement basically.
I quit watching because of the editing.
There is this style that seems very widespread on YouTube (and probably everyplace where amateurs are trying to make a splash with videos), of super-frequent cuts, constantly, non-stop, over and over and over and over, never-ending, non-pausing, a totally artificial hijacking of attention-arousal by constantly poking the viewer's involuntary responses.
I hate it. I do not want someone who has read a book about perceptual psychology using it to create content that jams its thumb on my "PAY ATTENTION TO THIS!!!11" button and never, ever lets up.
It sucks, it is hateful, and I wish people would stop doing it.
Anyone can make a video, but not everyone should.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 7:46 AM on January 23 [9 favorites]
I quit watching because of the editing.
There is this style that seems very widespread on YouTube (and probably everyplace where amateurs are trying to make a splash with videos), of super-frequent cuts, constantly, non-stop, over and over and over and over, never-ending, non-pausing, a totally artificial hijacking of attention-arousal by constantly poking the viewer's involuntary responses.
I hate it. I do not want someone who has read a book about perceptual psychology using it to create content that jams its thumb on my "PAY ATTENTION TO THIS!!!11" button and never, ever lets up.
It sucks, it is hateful, and I wish people would stop doing it.
Anyone can make a video, but not everyone should.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 7:46 AM on January 23 [9 favorites]
If you don't like frequent cuts, your probably not going to enjoy much of what's on YouTube. It seems like a really weird thing to complain about. If it's not for you, you're welcome to just move on.
posted by Dysk at 8:01 AM on January 23 [3 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 8:01 AM on January 23 [3 favorites]
Between f4mi and Angela Collier, MetaFilter has now introduced me to two excellent channels in as many months. My feed was getting a little stale! Also, this video was a great share at work as we've been thinking of sort of lateral ways to use YouTube's tech.
posted by Captaintripps at 8:36 AM on January 23 [3 favorites]
posted by Captaintripps at 8:36 AM on January 23 [3 favorites]
If you don't like frequent cuts complaints, your probably not going to enjoy much of what's on Youtube Metafilter. It seems like a really weird thing to complain about. If it's Aardvark's comment is not for you, you're welcome to just move on.
posted by demonic winged headgear at 10:32 AM on January 23 [8 favorites]
posted by demonic winged headgear at 10:32 AM on January 23 [8 favorites]
Yeah, and if you didn't like my response you can move on too.
This is not a post about YouTube video formats - it is a post about a weird subtitle format and how it interacts with YouTube transcript scrapers. I welcome complaints about the content. A generic complaint about the common YouTube video format is a derail.
posted by Dysk at 10:43 AM on January 23
This is not a post about YouTube video formats - it is a post about a weird subtitle format and how it interacts with YouTube transcript scrapers. I welcome complaints about the content. A generic complaint about the common YouTube video format is a derail.
posted by Dysk at 10:43 AM on January 23
Lots of long duration/few cuts stuff on YT for that matter. We frequently get posts here about 6 hours of train rides, or 12 hours of making sushi or whatever. Not everything is hyper-kinetically cut up into 3 second segments.
Imo commenting on the style of a video is still discussing the video. I came in to talk about poisoning AI, which is probably more fun, but I also didn't want to watch the video after starting, but I'm glad I saw the post and comments here to give the broad gist of what's going on!
posted by SaltySalticid at 10:44 AM on January 23
Imo commenting on the style of a video is still discussing the video. I came in to talk about poisoning AI, which is probably more fun, but I also didn't want to watch the video after starting, but I'm glad I saw the post and comments here to give the broad gist of what's going on!
posted by SaltySalticid at 10:44 AM on January 23
To be fair I tend to watch all of her videos somewhere between 1.5 and 1.8 times with all of the "wait what was that quick flash of a joke? curse the 10 second rewind jump!". For me spotting all the references is half the fun, but video doesn't overstimulate me yet.
posted by Kyol at 11:18 AM on January 23
posted by Kyol at 11:18 AM on January 23
I would also like to echo Aardvark Cheeselog comment, and would like to add that this video is far from the worst practitioner of it. It annoyed me, but I've complained about it here before, so I deleted my response before I submitted it, which contained a line that said, "but I was born in the 20th century, so what do I know?"
But to be clear, it is something particularly notable about some Youtube creators, and it's at least as bad on TikTok. But it isn't true of all Youtube creators by any means. It is a specific style, and I have clicked away from many videos because of it.
However, again, I've seen videos that do it a lot worse than f4mi does it, and I don't think it's disqualifying for a post. I sense a little defensiveness from Dysk, please don't take it personally.
posted by JHarris at 11:18 AM on January 23
But to be clear, it is something particularly notable about some Youtube creators, and it's at least as bad on TikTok. But it isn't true of all Youtube creators by any means. It is a specific style, and I have clicked away from many videos because of it.
However, again, I've seen videos that do it a lot worse than f4mi does it, and I don't think it's disqualifying for a post. I sense a little defensiveness from Dysk, please don't take it personally.
posted by JHarris at 11:18 AM on January 23
Fear me, I watched the whole video at 2x.
I didn't know .ass originated from the fansubbing scene. It makes sense though, I fondly remember the time when groups would go to heroic lengths to subtitle moving on-screen text or just to throw in jokes.
posted by lucidium at 11:19 AM on January 23 [3 favorites]
I didn't know .ass originated from the fansubbing scene. It makes sense though, I fondly remember the time when groups would go to heroic lengths to subtitle moving on-screen text or just to throw in jokes.
posted by lucidium at 11:19 AM on January 23 [3 favorites]
Interesting that some people's phones were crashing due to the poisoned subtitles. Mentioned in the youtube commets by f4mi. Makes me want to read up on .ytt.
posted by Mister Cheese at 11:33 AM on January 23 [1 favorite]
posted by Mister Cheese at 11:33 AM on January 23 [1 favorite]
« Older Now's your chance | Brancalonia Campaign Setting Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by Lemkin at 5:47 AM on January 23 [5 favorites]