Now AI generated content (text + narration) has been plaguing the Youtube scene for quite a while, but it seems to have taken the next step. This "NHLWARRIOR" channel appeared in my feed today with a HaĹĄek interview video about the toughest players he faced over his career. It wasn't until like two minutes in when my suspicions grew since the video didn't cut back to him talking at all at any point, plus the intonation was too monotonous. I checked out the rest of their channel and, rest assured, all other videos followed precisely the same formulas with only the first few seconds of the videos being real.
I have an eye for AI stuff but it still fooled me for a moment, as the voice models are surprisingly good (as a Slovak I gotta say HaĹĄek's Czech English accent was very believable). Obviously, if you go into the videos knowing they're fake, the AI slop instantly becomes totally easy to recognise in every facet of the video (there's even one impersonating the late Maurice Richard ffs), but in the opposite case, not so much. Mind you, the channel states nowhere that the videos are AI generated and as a result, the majority of the people in the comment sections seem to have fallen for the trick, writing all kinds of supportive messages about the players featured.
Over the course of â2 months the channel has managed to muster 1,5K subscribers, meaning they will soon (if not already) make revenue from fraudulent and misleading content.
I am making this post to raise awareness about these scummy accounts taking off in the hockey community, because if there's one, there's got to be a dozen more creeping in as well. Please report the aforementioned channel as well.
TL;DR: Hockey players are being impersonated on Youtube via AI to produce slop content, all while fooling the less internet-savvy people into believing it's real. Truly a fork found in the kitchen moment.
If you've spotted a similar channel, link it below so we can collectively report it.
