Google is training its AI tools on YouTube videos. These creators aren’t happy

Santa Ana-based entrepreneur Charlie Chang spent years posting finance videos on YouTube before he made a profit. Today, Chang’s media business oversees more than 50 YouTube channels, along with other digital sites, and generates $3 million to $4 million in annual revenue, he said. But lately, he’s been faced with a new concern: that YouTube’s moves in artificial intelligence will eat into his business. “The fear is there, and I’m still building the channels, but I am preparing, just in case my channels become irrelevant,” Chang, 33, said. “I don’t know if I’m gonna be building YouTube channels forever.” YouTube’s parent company, Google, is using a subset of the platform’s videos to train AI applications, including its text-to-video tool Veo. That includes videos made by users who have built their livelihoods on the service, helping turn it into the biggest streaming entertainment provider in the U.S. The move has sparked deep tensions between the world’s biggest online video company and some of the creators who helped make it a behemoth. Google, creators say, is using their data to train something that could become their biggest competitor. The schism comes at a pivotal time for Google, which is in a race
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