YouTube’s AI Clone Wars: Shorts Creators Get Digital Doppelgängers, But the Platform Swears It’s Not a Robot Takeover

YouTube is letting creators clone themselves into AI avatars for Shorts—just don’t expect them to replace the real thing.

YouTube CEO Neal Mohan outlined the platform’s AI roadmap for 2024:

This year you’ll be able to create a Short using your own likeness, produce games with a simple text prompt, and experiment with music.

But Mohan emphasized AI’s role as a creative tool rather than a replacement:

AI will remain a tool for expression, not a replacement.

With 200 billion daily views on Shorts, YouTube is rolling out AI-generated likenesses, AI stickers, auto-dubbing, and AI clips. The platform already uses likeness-detection tech from October 2023 to identify AI-generated content featuring creators’ faces and voices.

Existing systems that previously reduced spam and clickbait are now being repurposed to combat 'low quality AI content.'

While YouTube plans to expand Shorts with image posts—a format popularized by competitors—the platform maintains strict safeguards against synthetic content proliferation.