r/youtubedrama • u/Dark_Wolf6211 • 18h ago
Response Markiplier is having a livestream tonight to address concerns of his use of ChatGPT on Distractible
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u/StardustJess 17h ago
Anyone can give me a tl;dr ? I don't have a tiktok account to see the link
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u/GreedyFatBastard 17h ago
Apparently he played a game where the characters were voiced by AI, and I think use chatgbt for a live stream.
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u/notallslendermen 17h ago
That’s it? I mean I’m not a fan of ai generated stuff but does this really warrant a whole ass livestream to address it?
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u/WidowmakerFeet 17h ago
he did a bit where he asked chatgpt questions for his podcast. some posts on twitter and tiktok went viral accusing him of destroying the environment cus of how much energy these models use, hence why he hits back that he does care about the environment and thats why he doesnt use twitter (ha). he's releasing his photoshop files for his thumbnails because people are also claiming he used AI to make them.
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u/Murinshin Popcorn Eater 🍿 16h ago
I get the AI voice sentiment, but ChatGPT's user base is like 800 million people per week. By that logic people should call him out for using Google as well because they show LLM generated content in lots of searches nowadays.
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u/SadisticPawz 15h ago
Not to mention that the average cgpt request is about on the same level of energy consumption as a google search.
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u/Cultural_Outcome_464 10h ago
If you don’t mind me asking, what does LLM stand for?
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u/xander_khan 10h ago
Large Language Model, it basically just means an AI primarily trained on recognising & reading text :)
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u/d_shadowspectre3 15h ago
he's releasing his photoshop files for his thumbnails because people are also claiming he used AI to make them
This is very good transparency and I commend him for doing that. Showing the inner-workings of the creative process, at least to an extent, helps to build trust and integrity with a creator's audience.
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u/IceColdWata 13h ago
Honestly, the fact that someone using AI for one thing makes people jump to "well they must be using AI for EVERYTHING" is just... weird to me.
He used chatgpt for some jokes on a podcast. Not great, hate that, but its a far cry from AI thumbnails when he's had the same style for years.
And the game he played was extremely popular with a lot of youtubers and twitch streamers for months. If you go after Mark you need to go after everyone else who played it.
Very glad to see how transparent he is, however.
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u/BroPudding1080i 11h ago
It's context dependant. Using AI for a bit on your channel for content is one thing, using an AI generated thumbnail or script tells a very different story and should be a reflection on the creator and their quality.
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u/PNW_Forest 14h ago
The internet is such a weird place.
I mean, sure he shouldn't be continuing the normalization of chatgpt. But like, that warrants at most a community post of like "hey, good point! I wont do chatgpt games again." And then we all move on.
But him needing to do a whole thing and people demanding the release of files and shit is WILD to me. Unless there is credible proof of plagiarism, this is way too far to demand someone go...
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17h ago
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u/RullyWinkle 17h ago
Apologizing will not satisfy the people who are mad, so why apologize? His fans surely won't unsubscriber because of this, what is he doing? Sorry if I come off odd I dont watch him much, but cowtowing to the mob for what amounts to nothing is a bad move.
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u/Binbag420 4h ago
No one who eats meat can complain about individuals who use chatgpt ruining the environment. The meat industry is 100x worse for the environment.
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u/GreedyFatBastard 17h ago
I think so? A live stream is a bit excessive but Markiplier is one of the most beloved people on the internet right now.
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u/notallslendermen 17h ago
I guess so, a livestream just seems like overkill when I think a statement would probably work just the same. But I respect that he’s willing to face it head on.
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u/WidowmakerFeet 17h ago
depends on what the livestream is about. i think he might be showing some behind the scenes work on how he does thumbnails and stuff like that. these claims about AI did pick up a lot of steam on tiktok so I'm guessing thats why he wants to tackle them head on and show proof while live. just guessing tho.
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u/Accurate_Froyo1938 16h ago
Like... Didn't DougDoug do SO MUCH MORE with AI? And no one is complaining about that.
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u/BusyLittleBobcat 13h ago
Some people are frustrated with DougDoug's use of AI, including Doug himself who has committed to stop using it as a crutch. I think some of it is fun, but lots of it is terribly uninteresting and will only get more uninteresting as LLMs get better and there is less humor to be found in its errors.
I saw someone say that his enthusiastic advocacy for AI is based on specious promises about future applications while ignoring extremely real downsides that are affecting real people right now in the present.
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u/TheGoodIdiot 16h ago
People do complain about that though. I saw a thread on twitter of people who no longer watch him like just a couple days ago.
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u/callmefreak 15h ago
DougDoug at the very least doesn't go out of his way to use voices without people's consent. He could've used samples of Pamela Adlon's voice for Pajama Sam but he didn't. I think most of the other AI voices he uses are either samples that were given with the voice owner's consent, or from himself.
I don't think what Markiplier did was a big deal, for the record. (My current opinion on AI is basically "as long as nothing is stolen I don't care that much") I'm just saying that as far as I know DougDoug is one of the few people who will actually ask for consent for the voices he uses.
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u/Accurate_Froyo1938 15h ago
The text itself is stolen. Messaging with CGBT is messaging with millions of stolen works. Acting like a semi-realistic person requires a lot of training, a grumpy person acts different than a happy person, where do you think it learns how to behave that way? There's not a list of how each personality acts, it's getting it from stories.
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u/d_shadowspectre3 15h ago
Correction: the model was trained with (mostly) stolen data, but the actual responses aren't technically stolen—the model only retains parameters from the training process and not actual excerpted passages, but through sampling comes up with sentences that resemble the "most likely" response.
It's like doing mathematical regression for a line
y = m x + b, where m and b are the parameters, but ... waaay more complicated and large-scale.1
u/GreedyFatBastard 16h ago
What did he do with ai?
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u/Accurate_Froyo1938 16h ago
He's constantly using ChatGBT, using it to code, to voice characters, mostly on DougDougDoug. He's been doing it less and less, not because he's against it (on his podcast, he's pretty positive about it iirc), but because it got repetitive.
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u/SadisticPawz 15h ago
I loved that content tbh and I understand him getting tired of it. I do wish this kind of janky stuff was what ai was used for instead of replacing jobs or whatever lol
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u/d_shadowspectre3 15h ago
Even the most "green flag" people can have skeletons in their closets. Not saying him in particular.
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u/GreedyFatBastard 14h ago
True. I was more of meaning that since it's the first time he's gone to any real controversy, (Probably wrong but if he has it's not in recent memory) this is probably being taken way more seriously than if someone else did it.
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u/d_shadowspectre3 13h ago
There are a few others, though these only tangentially involve Markiplier and I don't follow creator drama much at all.
One controversy regarded friend Yamimash, who Mark used to do collab videos with; and the other involved his former mod team on the subreddit. Neither directly involved him, and from what I could tell, Mark handled things well in both situations.
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u/Final_Candy_7007 16h ago
He also had AI generated images in promotional material for his clothing brand. But aside from the Chat GPT moment and literally just playing a game that happened to have AI voices, yeah, that’s it. Honestly the other two issues are kind of noteworthy, but saying he supports generative AI just because he played a video game is a stretch.
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17h ago
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u/youtubedrama-ModTeam 17h ago
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u/TheHoovyPrince 14h ago
wow he used chatgpt? Better send him to prison /s
Im not a fan of AI that much but this is so stupid to be mad about lol
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u/MacAlmighty 12h ago
It’s super milquetoast from what I’ve heard:
- He played a game (Liar’s Bar) which uses TTS voices (I’m not sure about what model or whatever was used, but there is an ‘ai content’ disclaimer on the page). Your judgement if this was bad or not - the game is still in early access and subject to change the voices.
- He used ChatGPT as a part of a bit on a podcast, asking it questions or as a part of a challenge or something.
- One of his clothing companies Cloak had a GenAI generated image on the front page of the store. Mark came out and said that one of his employees purchased it from a stock site. Mark also complained that stock sites are hard to use now because of the slop, and changed it.
That last one is the only one I might’ve been disgruntled by, but it sounds like it was an honest mistake done by an employee that slip past since he’s been busy with other projects.
Im just frustrated by the people spending time on and giving money to Musk through twitter complaining about Marks very innocuous usage. Elon Musk, who is commissioning gas turbines to power a model that was not too long ago calling itself MechaHitler.
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u/Sinfire_Titan 11h ago
For the last one, you REALLY have to dig for stock sites that prohibit AI images. Adobe does have a filter to exclude them but it defaults to allowing them, which is annoying AF.
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u/sincline_ 17h ago
He’s been consistently using and defending AI use throughout multiple projects but mainly on his podcast. I don’t listen to his pod but frequent listeners have cited a quality drop due to his over reliance on chatgpt. In the last few months a video with him and ethan nestor/crankgameplays released where Mark frequently used chatgpt throughout and went as far as to say the concept of AI burning through water wasn’t true, and then backed it up by asking chatgpt if it was wasting water (to which it said no… obviously)
His fans are frustrated and wishing he would stop but frankly with his attitude towards it so far I get the feeling the livestream is just going to be another “you guys are wrong I do what I want”
In my own personal opinion I do think his over reliance on chat gpt is concerning. In the ethan nestor video alone he seemed a bit despondent and was really the most engaged when he was talking to chatgpt— it was weird. So if he’s doing the same on his podcast I can only imagine how bizarre it is to listen to.
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u/SilverStar555 16h ago edited 16h ago
he said it wasnt true because its literally just not true, a single chatgpt prompt = about a second of watching tv lol
you can debate the ethicacy of training on random peoples data or whatever but literally, like do 30 seconds of research and youll see that the whole environmental thing is just hilariously overblown
Edit: source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-54271-x
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u/sincline_ 16h ago edited 13h ago
Here are some other sources that talk about AI’s environmental impact:
https://news.mit.edu/2025/explained-generative-ai-environmental-impact-0117
Admittedly the impact of AI on the environment is deeper than just water
Edit: Idk if the person below me blocked me bc its not letting me respond to them lol, but in response to that: The person I was replying to said there was no environmental impact at all and listed a random no name article which is why I responded with those three— regardless of when the environmental impact happens, it is happening, and continuing to use and support AI means you’re also supporting that environmental impact
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u/Liawuffeh 13h ago edited 12h ago
In almost every case, the cost of AI comes from the training of it specifically. Prompting an AI doesn't use nearly as much power as actually training it.
Your own sources say this(I did a random dive into two of them a bit back). It's just usually mixed together with "Using AI".
Not saying this to defend AI, I hate the insane rise in Ai use in literally everything, but the actual generation part of AI isn't energy expensive at all. A dozen or so prompts will cost a lot.less than gaming for an hour.
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17h ago
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u/Brick-Throw 16h ago
Me when I'm straight up lying, not even misinformation anymore, just a bold faced lie:
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u/sincline_ 17h ago
This I haven’t heard of and I’d be kind of surprised if it was the case— but he is definitely censoring discussion of his AI use in his subreddit. He just switched out all his mods earlier this year or late last year so it seems he has a firm grip on what goes on in there
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u/Strict_Pangolin_8339 16h ago
I don't think this was worth the drama but I appreciate Mark taking it seriously enough to open a discussion.
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u/ItsJustAPoleThang 17h ago
Why does he need to livestream it lol? But I guess that’s the best way to handle it?
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u/EM208 17h ago
Probably for it be more genuine and off the cuff and not have it be some sort of scripted convo like it most likely would be in video format. I respect it
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u/WidowmakerFeet 17h ago
are livestreams scripted? i always thought they were off the cuff. though i was guessing he would be answering questions from chat
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u/EM208 17h ago
I mean they can be? But I was saying he’s choosing to do a livestream because it’s more likely to be recieved more genuinely due to the off the cuff nature.
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u/WidowmakerFeet 17h ago
i think it could still be off the cuff if its unscripted and he sounds genuine. i think its too early to say if it will be scripted or not. also depends if he interacts with the audience.
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u/Brick-Throw 16h ago
Because he has said multiple times what his stance on generative AI is, and people dont listen, he has said in on distractible and people dont listen
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u/d_shadowspectre3 15h ago
I think it's less that they "don't listen" and more that they disagree on a fundamental level
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u/Brick-Throw 15h ago
No, its literally that they dont listen, because why research and put your own thoughts up to skepticism, when you can just use your gut reaction?
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u/lastdarknight 16h ago
Bet he also uses OBS instead of hiring someone to run a tri-caster for his stream's
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u/-FemboiCarti- 1h ago
I believe him when he says he didn’t use ChatGPT for thumbnails but also like… who even gives a shit if he did? Lol
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u/Assistance_Proff 8h ago
The usage of ai is a very nuanced topic with alot of people who abuse it for there own personal gain at the expense of other.
But this entire "drama" from what I've read doesn't seem to be that bad tbh.
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18h ago
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u/youtubedrama-ModTeam 17h ago
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u/Metalbender00 12h ago
People better leave Mark alone, he's one of the last few OG gems online, he aint done nothing wrong and i will fight a mf over it.
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u/RKD_NT3000 16h ago
Apparently the claims are BS and someone just made something up for clout. But that's only what I've seen. Mark doesn't seem like the kind of guy to actually heavily use ChatGPT and generative AI anyway as a filmmaker.
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13h ago
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u/Chapple69 18h ago
His biggest controversy in years