Heh, pair that with Crohn's disease that flares up under stress... you gotta find ways to live life without increased blood pressure when there is a constant kid-battle between at least two, if not three, four, or all five kiddos :D
It was absolutely refreshing (and a good surprise) to see they didn't just try to shuffle the whole thing under the rug, like so many companies do these days.
@@JeffGeerlingwhat is especially good is that as a chinese company, they are not working on the basis of the currently broken chinese copyright system, and are actually working in the context of the global copyright system. well done to them for being so aware of the international context around intellectual property.
@@danielgrinevich8503 that's an assumption, an incorrect one, unfortunately. If you watched the first video you could have seen that Jeff had no plans to sue them as it was overly complex for him. He asked them to act in common sense and do the right thing. That is why it's particularly interesting that this Chinese company did the right thing.
Good call, I rarely look at comments unless I feel strongly enough to write a comment, then I'll scroll down a bit. I also primarily consume RU-vid content on TV so you don't see any comments, and editing the title is certainly the best way of immediately showing an update.
@@impy1980 you can see comments on the TV client - you can use the nav buttons to head over to the description or the first comment and click on either one, then you can read the description or the comments. We do this with regularity. (Amazon Fire TV and directly on the Vizio set itself.)
@@AndrewBeals While this is true, the top comment or other reply say it best - the tv doesn't preclude people from seeing comments -- but it makes one hell of a barrier to entry compared to 'just scroll down'. I never go to tv comments, but spend a lot of my time on PC in the comments, especially top comments.
@@AndrewBeals Yeah, I'm not gonna waste my time doing that. I click the thumbnail to play the video, the video auto closes after playback ends, then I play another video. Seriously, how many are going to pick up the remote to scroll down to view extra info, especially as the video is playing, so you then need to dick about rewinding what was missed? Not many, so it's very useful to have a hint in the title!
Especially since they're not US based - they could just blatantly ignore the issue, good luck trying to sue company from China. Huge respect for their response.
I think it has more to do with them being a small company. Sure, Micro$oft or OpenAI would not give you this kind of answer, but neither would Alibaba or Baidu
Only because they got caught. A similar thing happened to Jerry Rig Everything by a Chinese company. From pirating software to steeling IP, this is very much par for the course in China, and even Asia as a whole. I assure you U.S. companies have much better ethics.
The Jeff multiverse grew too far, too fast-first Red Shift Jeff, then Level 2 Jeff, but if *AI Jeff* had been allowed to grow unchecked, no SBC in the world would have been safe. On a serious note, thank you for standing up, calling out this practice as unfair and deceptive and handling the whole ordeal with your usual level-headedness.
That's got me wondering if maybe Red Shirt Jeff was somehow involved... have to keep an eye on him, if he's more of a Brain type (Pinky and the Brain)...
I admire your handling of this issue (yes - I’m focusing on you vs Elecrow in comment). 1. Publishing both videos provides a solid documented path from discovery, thru complaint, and into resolution. This in itself helps others with similar issues (it’s not just you and Ms. Johansson - of that I’m sure). 2. You educated others on the “how it’s done” vs. simply shame the perpetrator and move on. These tools exist and it’s silly to not address the “how” part. 3) Even if one ignores your religious upbringing, it’s always nice when someone takes the time to see both sides of an issue and acts after careful thought. Once you bring back in your religious schooling and respect what it brings to the table, it’s possible you’ve got more to teach us than just R.Pi’s. Maybe? But maybe that’s not your primary focus on your videos. 4) You clearly explained your revenue and livelihood issues. These are important. I feel the fact that you’re willing to put a price on this is a very important part of this process. You’re a single person putting food on the table for a growing family. Individuals aren’t protected by random corporate bloat. You’re out there on your own with income based on just video performance. Yikes! 5) Please don’t make AI videos 😂 - unless you’re forced by situations like this. There’s a gazillion channels covering AI. I like that you focus on the R.Pi and associated items. Ok - that was a longer comment than I expected to write! However, overall, it’s 5-star’s on execution!
Good for Elecrow for apologizing. I've actually been impressed in the past by Elecrow and other Chinese companies that support the hobbyist market. It's not the highest margin business, and it requires more customer support and documentation than just selling knock-offs, etc.
They have some annoying marketing practices, but I've heard that are better than others about actually respecting open source licenses, and giving credit when they remake other people's open source hardware designs. Obviously they can do better on all those things, but there are so many companies now that don't even meet the bare minimum :(
I bought a couple of their lora pi hats a while back. The webpage with the product listed didn't have a link on how to get the board to work. Gave them an email and they got it sorted out within a couple of days. For a company that likely had to translate my e-mail, I was impressed. Jeff is right about the areas where they could improve. They have so far shown to me though that they are at least willing to take feedback and show good customer service. That's a little rare these days.
Sneakers is such a good movie. Cheesy by today's standards, but it still has applications in security. Such a good movie... I wish they made movies like that today.
I understand how someone could see using your voice as innocent, or even as an "hommage" if they follow and like your content. Everyone makes mistakes, Elecro handled this well.
That is actually one of the major use cases the co-founder of Resemble.ai talked to me about (I didn't include that part of the conversation just because it's a tiny bit of a tangent on this video). Apparently the number of bank scams is getting to be huge-I would rather they just require more secure TFA options, but not sure why they think voice is a good authentication measure.
Just as silly as them using insecure text messages, and mandatory password requirements, such as capitals, numbers, and only some special characters. All of which reduce the possible password combinations, and STILL allowing 6 character passwords. And often limiting to 15-20 max characters, that cripple password generators.
Yeah I always refuse to do the voice print recording as ID, you either speak to me, or ask I go in to the branch to speak to someone in person, there's no way I'm trusting voice prints, and what happens when a data breach inevitably happens!
@@JeffGeerling I ran into this issue when I both worked in IT and at a bank. The IT job was at a university and there was a moderately popular streamer and someone had obtained enough information to pass all checks that we had available: student number, birthday, and a few others. We didn't allow it because someone with an obvious male voice calling and claiming that they are someone who has an obvious female voice that is known by some in the department won't get you very far. Numerous times (to the point where we were emailed and told in-person every week) that people would have the complete birthday, address, social, account number, driver's license number, and signer information for someone's bank accounts. Unlike the IT example, we'd end up hearing from someone who sounded like the picture we'd see on the account. We were instructed to call the customer back directly. The bank was hoping that the voice fingerprints would stop a majority of the fraud calls. The voice fingerprints were supposed to pull up the account information to the call center representative so they could get a checkmark that the voice passed or failed, then still use TFA. Hopefully these AI tools can't break the fingerprints...
Everything published is in the public domain??? Oh-boy, what an "interesting" view on things. So all patents are in the public domain and may be copied? And all music? Someone must have failed to understand "free to view" is not the same as "free of ownership". Today's schools must be failing rather hard.
I think some people think the idea that "information wants to be free" equates to "nobody has any right to anything including their own personhood, if they ever set foot outside their front door" :D
You use the word "copied", but current expectations are that AI training will not fall under copyright and will not be considered copying. It's important to pay close attention to the way the law is going, instead of outrage based on wishful thinking. If you want this to change, address your politicians so they can push for legislation. In other words: the way it stands today, what you said is misinformed, and if you want it to become reality, you will have to fight for it.
I'm just responding to your message, not the Elecrow case btw, because in that case, it was about appropriating someone's likeness, which is not related to copyright either, as far as I know (not a lawyer).
@@SimonMeskens With respect: those "current expectations" are not universally held. The legal theory behind the copyright exception relies on a deliberate misunderstanding of the words "training" or "learning," and the pervasive anthropomorphizations common in the machine learning space. The only thing that is truly "expected" at this point is that transformer-generated content will not be copyrightable-not by the model provider, and not by the "proompter."
@@GSBarlev There is no need for the bad attitude and adversarial tone, this is a polite conversation. With "current expectations", I meant expectations by legal scholars looking at how law is progressing globally surrounding AI and precedents being set in courts. You seem to be talking about emotional ethical arguments by laymen, like whether or not a machine can learn like a human, which don't really factor into the conversation, outside of public discourse. Your last sentence is exactly the point I was making and you're in agreement with me, you just wrote it with the word "proompter" to try and make pro-AI people feel bad about their choices, which is just a low blow.
Fraternal correction. In today's world there is almost no path to redemption. Reminds me of something that happened when I was about 10 years old. We were playing so hard the next door neighbor got so mad that he banned the kids from coming round to his home to play with his kids. As a kid this was something almost unfathomable losing friends like that so I waited until the next day and walked up to the gentleman as he was returning from work and apologized for all of us. To my amazement he smiled and said it was all good and said we can play but to please keep it in check. That was almost 50 years ago and I remember it every time I see someone being punished relentlessly over and over again and without mercy as seems to be the norm these days.
Jeff giving everybody a masterclass on being a good person right here. Very good that you also explained your reasoning, hopefully some of the people who went straight to yelling "SUE THEM" will learn something from that. (I can hope, right?)
Its a real shame as Elecrow has some good videos of how to use their products which are pretty good too and i hope they can revoice them soon. They have acted honourably in this incident and hope everyone can move on amicably 😁
They could have compensated you by hiring you to revoice those videos they made with AI... But holy cow. As I'm watching, 46 minutes after publication, you've raised about $15k for UOAA. You did an amazing job turning this harm into a really good deed. Nice work.
This fundraiser is a holdover from a couple years ago, I didn't create a new fundraiser for this video, so it's still showing the $14k from last go-round! I would love to double my fundraising though, the UOAA has helped me a LOT, and I want for anyone else who has to get an ostomy to have the same support that I received (or, well, better!).
@@JeffGeerling $1000 in an hour is nothing to sneeze at either, even if it's not as mind-blowing as I imagined from first seeing the total figure. If I ever feel as wronged as you did, I aspire to do this kind of job redirecting it to something good. 'Cause there's a decent chance that I'd just lose my temper instead, and you did an awesome job managing that.
I posted my disgust on elecrows RU-vid feed after testing your voice against what they used in a voice analysis piece of software. I am glad they gave you a full apology with a way forward. I have to say that your attitude is something I can certainly learn from. You are a solid gentleman and scholar. Thank you for creating excellent content. Good luck on your fund raiser.
@@JosephHalder I'm sure there are big toilet review channels. I don't follow them because it's not something I'm interested in. But having someone well known for their toilet reviews apparently doing reviews for 3d printers or something doesn't make it any better.
Very responsible behavior from both Elecro and Jeff. Jeff seems very humble and honest, I'm glad he's taking advantage of his platform to help people in need.
I agree that the company shouldn't have called out the employee who made the mistake (which I think it was). They acknowledge that there were failures by the company in training and in supervising the employee, which would have prevented this from happening. It'd be better to deal with it internally. And removing the original video removes context from this one. It was your immediate (or nearly so) reaction, and it's important to see that
Yep, and ultimately-especially as they've responded and I linked to it, I think it helps people understand the whole story better (and IMO, maybe makes Elecrow seem better than they would if I removed the original!).
This video... Oh my gosh. Jeff, you show your own grace and patience. I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment both of the situation and of the response from Elecrow. Honestly, the response they gave you was incredibly humbling. More companies generally (heck, more *people*) but ESPECIALLY in tech need to be this candid about owning a situation. Elecrow rose a bit in my mental estimation of them, when they might have taken a different approach and sunk irredeemably to the bottom. You also make me proud to be a Native St. Louisan. Every day, I miss it there a little bit - even though I love Boston and have lived here for 35 years. And honestly, you also hilight some *good* being done in the AI/ML space. I *work* in this industry, and there are days when I ask myself whether I can continue to do so given the overall miasma of stench associated with the names, even though what we do at my place of employment is absolutely something I am comfortable with ethically and morally. Knowing that there are indeed other companies out there doing the right things with this technology make me breathe a little easier today. Thanks for this. Thanks for all of this. I know you want to just make cool stuff - me too. But this video *is also* cool stuff, and I hope that I've helped to reinforce that sentiment for you.
Thank you for trying to use the situation as a teaching/learning moment versus just stoking drama. Now I just need somebody to watch a twitch or YT video where somebody reacts to your videos in full and just makes faces of confusion.
A _lot_ of time in the seminary is spent studying philosophy, starting with the Greek philosophers-the goal is to try to discover through history the way we come to the ethics, morals, and scientific outlooks we have today. It's hard to understand modern philosophy, linguistics, etc. without a strong foundation! Though most of the time I'm pretty sure I'm still one of Plato's cavemen looking at shadows on the wall.
@@JeffGeerling I don't know if there is the truth or more 'a truth'. Today it's harder than ever. Glad to hear they taught the classics there, I love your videos.
@@H0mework Well all I hope is that everyone seeks that truth-it's certainly better to do that than to stare at social media feeds all day, heh. Something I know I'm guilty of far too often, to the detriment of my mental health and family life!
@@JeffGeerling Thank you, I didn't expect another reply. I enjoy your posts on HN a lot, like the antenna one. The truth may be that I have a disease. A truth is listening to a few expert doctors and hearing differing opinions or 'truths' of the best course of action. I certainly want 'the truth' but I may have to settle with a truth, the interpretation.
Elecrow's CEO response is very respectable. A generalized Chinese issue is that they currently have almost no respect for copyright. BTW, I think that Jeff's professional response to this issue in the first place really helped him to get a response from the CEO; in my opinion, the Chinese business people will do the right thing when they are allowed to save face and maintain their good reputation.
Well done Jeff. I wish I had a way to commend Elecrow to themselves without giving their marketing department a flamethrower to bombard me with marketing messages I don't want but "feedback" requires registration. Registration seems to require consent to receive. So Elecrow gets a bad check mark for that but a good check mark for the reply to you. I am an Elecrow customer, as in I have purchased their products.
Hey Jeff, this may be a bit off-topic, but I always see these Ethernet Cables in your videos and they look really nice. Could you please tell us what brand they are and where to buy them?
I believe they are Monoprice (might be another manufacturer), but search for 'Slimline Ethernet' - they're good for at least 5 Gbps, though for PoE++ or 10 Gbps I usually use larger cables. These are great for 1 or 2.5 Gbps work though!
I can't say for certain which ones they are, but I wouldn't be surprised if he orders them from Show Me Cables. It's a site that the company I work for orders from, and is pretty well known in the IT field. The cable in his video (transparent connector with a black sleeve) may be an L-Com, but I have no clue as there are SO many different brands and styles.
@@JeffGeerling Ah I found them! They are Monoprice SlimRun patch cables. Thanks Jeff! I didn't see the reply until after I had already written mine out.
@@MaxDad7 Yep! I bought a few sets of different lengths, and now I just grab the one I need when I need to patch something. I wouldn't trust them more than 5-6' though, but they are incredibly handy around the desk or for tight but neat patch setups.
I work in post production for film and TV. I can tell you first hand it takes way longer to synthesize dialog in a performance than to just record (ADR) the talent. Great points in this video 👍
If only more people engaged in these problems like you did. And, while Elecrow messed up, they seem to have responded fairly appropriately, especially factoring in cultural differences. AND thank you for segment/interview on the ai detection
This is super helpful content Jeff. I'm glad this story is leading to a happier and productive ending. I'm interested using AI to both help improve my content pipeline as well as protections against unauthorized use - your video helped me learn more about both. I wonder if RU-vid will start including AI "voice" detection in their existing video copyright analysis. So far it's uncovered a ton of theft of my Amazon video review content - though my voice isn't as popular as yours to get nabbed. Billy Mayes here I come though!
I know DerBauer has used AI voice cloning to translate interviews he conducted in German. While it felt a little weird to listen to, for somebody like him who records every video in two languages, I can’t fault him for wanting to save himself some work and provide his English audience more content. But yeah… it all still feels so icky.
Interesting tools out for those that want to use them wisely. Let's consider someone that has a speech impediment, if they can get enough clean voice, then they could synthesize quality products without all the editing. I may need to explore this for some of our students so that they can succeed without being too self conscious or embarrassed.
Glad you could sort it out. Until you are unfortunate enough to have a court case of your own, it is hard to imagine how much it sucks out of you. Not just money. Personally I couldn't think about anything else for 8 months when it happened to me. It's WAY beyond starting in a new job in a new town stress levels.
Respect your levelheaded handling of the situation. Mistakes happen and like you I try not to assume malicious intent. My hope is always that it can be a learning experience for everyone involved.
i feel a bit uneasy about how they treated it as a "copyright infringement" case, to me it's moreso that cloning a voice without consent is unethical/morally wrong. it's not a question of copyright, it's about stealing someone likeness
Though, the person who wrote it isn't an English speaker, so it could be that what they meant in Chinese as infringing on things in general got translated to copyright.
This, and there is a general confusion between different IP rights (like claiming that copyright has to be constantly defended in court when that's trademarking).
Credit where credit is due. Elecrow owns the mistake and did everything they could to make things right with Jeff. So much better than other companies that would 100% keep quiet even though caught red handed for stealing. We're in a scary era where we can't be sure the person we talk to over the phone is indeed who we think they are.
Indeed, they handled it very well. Though this is one of those area's where its going to be impossible to really police and the benefit for everyone of the non-native speaker being translated and voiced over very cheaply, and without having to audit and cross check the humans your paying with other assets to be sure they are neutral toned and correct enough means these AI voices are not going away... So as the faux Jeff wasn't a very good Jeff clone, nor actually claiming to be Jeff... In this case I'm not sure they actually had to do anything, I'm glad they did don't get me wrong, its the right thing to do IMO, especially if they find the AI model used was entirely trained on Jeff. But when it is just somewhat similar sound and not actively claiming to be that person - your in that grey area where there is no clear answers and complaining about it at all has weird potential side effects. Lots of folks sound rather similar to other family members, plenty of impressionist and voice artist can really convincingly sound rather like somebody else etc - until they are actively trying to claim to be somebody they are not its far from clear where the boundary of acceptable should be. Especially if you just happen to sound that way, its not a deliberate effort to sound similar...
A refreshing take in a world full of madness around content. Jeff, you've reacted and responded in a kind and honorable manner and educated us all along the way.
Very awesome, glad this was resolved. I also like how you touch on your faith and time at the seminary. I remember on one of your videos where you went to LTX you included a tidbit about attending Mass. I think overall this wil be a good learning experience, and a testament to how AI can be used in bad ways, I feel we are going to see a lot of that since right now AI seems to just be marketed as some commodity. (In my opinion anyways)
This is an excellent example of how to make lemonade out of unexpected lemons thrown at you! Well done Both parties and we got to learn few new things on the way
Hopefully people use your response as a model for how to respond. Wow, two people / groups cooperating on the internet... Who would have thought. You're a good dude, Jeff.
If there is no legal precedent, it won't stop other companies from stealing, and most creators are not as big as you. If they complain online, it won't be heard 🤷♀️ but I understand why you choose not to battle legally.
This makes me happy :) I was excited to back and receive their new kickstarter product, but was ready to request a refund and never consider their products again. Their swift response with apology and resolution means I can look forward to it once more! Thanks for the update, Jeff.
The bit by resemble was very interesting! AI CAN be used for good too. der8auer does all his videos in both german and english, and for one video he used AI to basically make the english version for him. It was quite believable. But I still think even that kind of video needs to be clearly labelled as AI generated.
Respect to them for owning the failure. This is REALLY rare these days. Well done from both sides - Jeff for not escalating beyond reason and them for recognizing the fail and moving forward with lesson learn.
Wait... a mature response from a company? One that actually demonstrates something holds on to something like honor? Wow... not everyone is imitating Silicon Valley nowadays. Only sad thing is that I do not have use for Elecrow's stuff. But good on them!
I could only imagine a world where everyone exhibited your behavior and character. If nothing else it reminds me to try to be the best person I can be.
"You wouldn't download a voice" It would be so cuul if I could just make the voice and Jeff would actually be diminished and loose his voice. Future is now. Kek.
Everyone's trying to get a competitive edge nowadays, they'll do stuff they really shouldn't... But one has to be able to accept an apology also. Good on you that you tried to avoid the drama. We really have more than enough nowadays.
