Will Shanklin has been writing about gadgets, tech and their impact on humanity since 2011. Before joining Engadget, he spent five years creating and leading the mobile technology section for New Atlas. His work has also appeared on SlashGear, TechRadar, Digital Trends, AppleInsider, Android Central, HuffPost and others.
alleged internal spreadsheets suggesting the AI video-generating startup trained its Gen-3 model using YouTube content from channels like Disney, Netflix, Pixar and popular media outlets. An alleged former Runway employee told the publication the company used the spreadsheet to flag lists of videos it wanted in its database.
It would then download them without detection using open-source proxy software to cover its tracks. One sheet lists simple keywords like astronaut, fairy and rainbow, with footnotes indicating whether the company had found corresponding high-quality videos to train on. For example, the term “superhero” includes a note reading, “Lots of movie clips.” Other notes show Runway flagged YouTube channels for Unreal Engine, filmmaker Josh Neuman and a Call of Duty fan page as good sources for “high movement” training videos. “The channels in that spreadsheet were a company-wide effort to find good quality videos to build the model with,” the former employee told. “This was then used as input to a massive web crawler which downloaded all the videos from all those channels, using proxies to avoid getting blocked by Google.”A list of nearly 4,000 YouTube channels, compiled in one of the spreadsheets, flagged “recommended channels” from CBS New York, AMC Theaters, Pixar, Disney Plus, Disney CD and the Monterey Bay Aquarium. In addition, Runway reportedly compiled a separate list of videos from piracy sites. A spreadsheet titled “Non-YouTube Source” includes 14 links to sources like an unauthorized online archive offound that prompting the video generator with the names of popular YouTubers listed in the spreadsheet spit out results bearing an uncanny resemblance. Crucially, entering the same names in Runway’s older Gen-2 model — trained before the alleged data in the spreadsheets — generated “unrelated” results like generic men in suits. Additionally, after the publication contacted Runway asking about the YouTubers’ likenesses appearing in results, the AI tool stopped generating them altogether. “I hope that by sharing this information, people will have a better understanding of the scale of these companies and what they’re doing to make ‘cool’ videos,” the former employee toldin April. In that interview, Mohan described training on its videos as a “clear violation” of its terms. “Our previous comments on this still stand,” YouTube spokesperson Jack Mason wrote to Engadget.At least some AI companies appear to be in a race to normalize their tools and establish market leadership before users — and courts — catch onto how their sausage was made. Training with permission through licensed deals is one thing, and that’s another tactic companies like. But it’s a much sketchier proposition to treat the entire internet — copyrighted material and all — as up for grabs in a breakneck race for profit and dominance.
Runway AI Company Spreadsheets
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