Google deploys AI to clean ‘trashy videos’ from YouTube homepage

YouTube is littered with extreme and misleading videos, and the company has been criticized for not doing enough to limit the dreck. But one place the Google unit has managed to clean up is YouTube’s homepage.

Behind the scenes, Google has deployed artificial intelligence software that analyses reams of video footage without human help, deciphers troubling clips and blocks them from the homepage and home screen of the app. Its internal name is the “trashy video classifier,” according to three people familiar with the project.

The system, which has not been reported before, plays a key role in attracting and keeping viewers on YouTube’s homepage, building a foundation for a flurry of new advertising coming to the video service.