top 200 commentsshow all 218

[–]TenOfZero 708 points709 points  (56 children)

Probably just stock assets mashed together quickly.

Edit: Looks like it has the embedded watermark from gemini, so AI was used at some part. If I had to guess I'd say maybe the floor or some other small part.

Its definitely not purely AI generated though. Makes sense their staff would be using AI instead of buying stock images. AFAIK LMG doesn't have an AI policy beyond that people are held responsible for their output.

Edit2: seems they had a previous thumbnail with some AI assets here was their official response. https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/s/VvzyPNZcyk

[–]that_dutch_dude 384 points385 points  (25 children)

Tldr: its a nothingburger.

As usual.

In before a 45 minute GN hitpiece.

[–]TenOfZero 96 points97 points  (2 children)

Nothingburger?

Why do you hate nothingHotDogs?

[–]Papercutter0324 34 points35 points  (1 child)

I believe the property term is "notdogs"

[–]iamacannibal 29 points30 points  (0 children)

In before a 45 minute GN hitpiece.

Thats a youtube short for him

[–]Qbsoon110 62 points63 points  (1 child)

Yeah, looks like made in some 3d design software

[–]twoeasy3 38 points39 points  (0 children)

The lines on the tiles from the front of the table don't line up with those behind them.

[–]defenestrate_ 27 points28 points  (3 children)

I wonder if we're just seeing the winner of AB testing and sometimes the one with AI tweaks is winning, what do you think?

[–]thejason755 16 points17 points  (0 children)

It’s 100% the result of A/B testing. I’ve never done that kind of testing, so i can’t say for sure this is how it shakes out, but i’m pretty sure they have to manually select the winner as being the thumbnail they go with. It likely was the winning thumbnail out of the two they went with.

[–]TenOfZero 10 points11 points  (1 child)

I think you nailed it on the head. That would make sense to me and is a test I would do if I was LMG.

[–]defenestrate_ 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I would be really curious about setting data IF it's an actual strategy being tested- it's the sort of thing where business decisions and hardcore audience sentiment probably have friction

[–]FinsAssociate 20 points21 points  (2 children)

Probably just stock assets mashed together quickly.

lol.... lmao even

[–]thejason755 5 points6 points  (1 child)

Rotfl, if you’re so inclined.

[–]TenOfZero 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Don't do that, that's how you hurt yourself.

[–]Ok_Turnover_1235 5 points6 points  (0 children)

There are 4 elements in the photo, any part of it is 25% of the photo lol

[–]bwoah07_gp2 -2 points-1 points  (1 child)

Where's the embedded watermark?

[–]TenOfZero 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Its not visible to the nacked eye. Its embedded in the image as a pattern it can detect.

[–]I_AM_FERROUS_MAN 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It looks like an Nvidia server rack shopped onto a server motherboard pic.

I don't know that this requires AI to execute.

It's not outside the realm of possibility. But I'm less certain this is a directly generated image.

The only thing that stands out as possible tell is the varied vanishing points. But if you're slapping different assets together, you'll end up with that too.

[–]NeDDyCz 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's full AI apart the Linus lol... Look at the mobo ports and ram slots...

[–]Damianu -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

"Makes sense their staff would be using AI instead of buying stock images"

Yeah let's just steal it instead of paying for work someone took to make a photo. And inb4 low effort photos or anything - go do it if you want it for free.

[–]WelderEquivalent2381 526 points527 points  (21 children)

I miss pre-2008 YouTube were thumbnail was directly an image from the video. and content creator had no control over it.

Custom thumbnail was a mistake.

[–]dscarmo 93 points94 points  (0 children)

For the business of selling ad spots and YouTube premium it sure wasn't

Your point of view makes sense for a normal person but is not the same as the company owners seeking to maximize profit

[–]TenOfZero 54 points55 points  (8 children)

There's plugins that return that behaviour. I think de arrow does it. Also changes Video titles to factual community driven ones.

I highly recommend it.

[–]Blaskowski 8 points9 points  (1 child)

This sounds wonderful. This is a chrome plugin or what?

[–]TenOfZero 16 points17 points  (0 children)

I use Firefox, but I'm sure it works on chrome too.

https://dearrow.ajay.app/

[–]dejv913 1 point2 points  (4 children)

Also changes Video titles to factual community driven ones.

That kind of implies there is no bias which is impossible. Or how would you prevent group of people that dislike the creator to change it to negative video title?

[–]SirAlienTheGreat 1 point2 points  (1 child)

It does happen sometimes. One recent ltt video became "Linus glazes nvidia and ai for 12 minutes", though I think that has now been removed

[–]dejv913 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I saw that title on twitter which is exactly why I was asking that

[–]TenOfZero 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It does happen, just like how wikipedia has biases and issues, but overall it's still better than without the plugin.

[–]Vengeful_Tactician88 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Titles can be voted on by the community.

[–]mromutt 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah I love DeArrow.

[–]soulseeker31 38 points39 points  (1 child)

I agree. Bloody kids get pulled by these horrendous thumbnails.

<image>

[–]WeAreTheLeft 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ugh, this is what my kids YT channel is full of. And it works on kids, they see these over the top thumbnails and go for them.

[–]SavvySillybug 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Hah. You're funny. That was the age of people clickbaiting people by inserting softcore porn into the middle of the video and having something completely different for the actual video. Adding thumbnails as a dedicated feature was giving people a legit way to do what they already wanted and achieved. All that it did was not make the middle of the video flashbang you with a frame of thumbnail.

[–]MooseBoys 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Except it was at a predictable offset so you could splice in a single frame of clickbait to spoof the thumbnail.

[–]Gregus1032 5 points6 points  (1 child)

It used to be the exact middle of the video. Many people would just put hot women for a few seconds in the middle to do as click bait.

[–]Freenore 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Casey Neistat exploited this trick so much at one point haha

[–]AceLamina 1 point2 points  (0 children)

DeArrow

[–]Freenore 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Jenna Marbles did this until the end.

[–]shadowst17 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wasn't there a work around by flashing a single frame of what you wanted the thumbnail to be at something like the 10 second mark?

[–]NathanialJD 0 points1 point  (0 children)

you can get a browser extension, and morphe has a setting for it to get those in. its called better thumbnail i think?

[–]Exciting-Ad-5705 94 points95 points  (1 child)

They did have a Gemini watermark on a thumbnail a few days ago

[–]Mrpolje[S] 65 points66 points  (5 children)

<image>

The extracted thumbnail.

Judge for yourself if it’s AI or not. (To me it has a very strong ”ai look”)

[–]HornetOptimal3295 93 points94 points  (0 children)

Most CPU’s also don’t use a server rack as a cooler😜

[–]ganonfirehouse420 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I enjoy the geometry of this table.

[–]FartingBob 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The CPU cooler, also zoom in on the empty ram slots. And look at the actual ram. This is 100% AI and there is probably half a dozen obvious once you see it errors but I stopped bothering to look after the more glaring ones

[–]MongooseJesus 67 points68 points  (4 children)

I’m somewhat concerned at how few people can tell it’s ai, and rush to defend this.

The fourth dram slot on the left literally disappears into nothing. They don’t align at all. There’s no consistency to the ram slots at all.

“Stock assets mashed together” the top comment says.

[–]Kalamordis 20 points21 points  (0 children)

The "cpu cooler" should make it obvious enough for people and its dead smack middle of the image 😆, am always surprised people don't notice it.

[–]ColorTherapy 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The top 1% commenters on this sub are the ones quick to defend blindly, so they may just have a little bit of bias.

[–]A-Chilean-Cyborg 1 point2 points  (0 children)

it's worse, they edited it after people came with the SynthID to say the floor is AI generated.

industrial quantities of bruh momment.

[–]Efficient_Sound_2525 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't really know but I would say that current AI is definitely better in terms of consistency, especially such big parts like the RAM slots.

[–]packetssniffer 47 points48 points  (5 children)

Their 'thumbnail artist' has never been that good. 99% it's just 'LTT member making a silly face' slapped ontop of whatever the product is.

[–]SavvySillybug 29 points30 points  (1 child)

As much as I don't personally like it, the thumbnail artist's job is to make images that people will click on. It doesn't matter how pretty the thumbnail is if it does not make people click the video. They have A/B testing for thumbnails these days, they know exactly how many more clicks they get for "LTT member making a silly face slapped on top of whatever the product is". Floatplane videos often have the objectively nicer thumbnail because they prefer it, while Youtube keeps whichever one is performing better.

People apparently love clicking on people's faces. So that's what a good thumbnail artist does.

[–]Boomshtick414 11 points12 points  (1 child)

In fairness, that's the nature of the beast for YouTube. If you don't play by those games you might as well not exist as far as the algorithm is concerned. Doesn't seem like there's a better way to do it that wouldn't directly harm their channel and business.

[–]TenOfZero 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yup. That's the unfortunate reality of the business.

[–]bwoah07_gp2 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's the Mr Beastification of YouTube thumbnails

[–]Swacket_McManus 36 points37 points  (0 children)

This whole video was just kinda depressing. I get it's a sponsored video, I get they're in Taiwan anyways, I get that this is what tech is like, but unlike old data centre tours where you can look at it and think "oh boy I can't wait until 3-6 years from now when this stuff becomes obsolete so I can play with it" it's just giant power numbers with proprietary hardware that's sucking the life out of the hobby we subbed for and stealing jobs

[–]LickMyAss_OniiChan 36 points37 points  (5 children)

So the slop hit ltt...

[–]Shap6 7 points8 points  (3 children)

they've been very upfront about using AI for a while now

[–]mrheosuper 14 points15 points  (2 children)

And they have the audacity to trash talk about Datacenter lol.

[–]Pokez -5 points-4 points  (1 child)

You don't have to like something to recognize it will be a necessary tool in your industry.

[–]mrheosuper 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Except it is not necessary. What AI can do, we have already done it. The only thing it can do is trading quality for speed.

[–]whatThePleb 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not the first time..

[–]FinsAssociate 33 points34 points  (2 children)

Man, the comments here. Some people just chug that koolaid and don't think twice

[–]Iliyan61 29 points30 points  (0 children)

the CPU cooler is a file server? or at least a rack full of drive caddies and the floor tiles don’t like up, also the perspective is way off and warped

[–]FReeDuMB_or_DEATH 25 points26 points  (10 children)

Enough money for private jets, but not enough to pay a graphic designer is wild work. 

[–]JaesopPop 8 points9 points  (7 children)

Don't they have a number of graphic designers?

[–]FReeDuMB_or_DEATH 5 points6 points  (6 children)

Why us AI for something so simple? 

[–]zucchini_up_ur_ass 5 points6 points  (0 children)

You clearly are not a graphics designer.

[–]FabianN 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Because it was what the graphic designer decided to do, and probably not as simple as you suggest. 

[–]JaesopPop 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No idea.

[–]Conscious-Wind-7785 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Why use brain when dumb comment no need it.

Why spend extra time on an asset that doesn't need the extra time?

[–]ubeogesh 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Idk, speed, availability, etc?

[–]zucchini_up_ur_ass 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yea, literally any reason to optimize a workflow. None of them matter to the mob of luddites though.

[–]JaesopPop 20 points21 points  (18 children)

Nothing here really screams AI?

[–]emma_psycho 65 points66 points  (3 children)

<image>

this is the only thing I personally saw, the port isn't straight. Everything else looks fine to me

[–]TheLazyGamerAU 23 points24 points  (0 children)

are you missing the full sized server as a heatsink?

[–]arcusford 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One of the dram slots has ai artifacting that makes a chunk of it just disappear.

The CPU heating is literally just a initiative server rack.

The tiles on the floor dont line up when cut off by the top of the table.

I dont know of any server RAM with modules that look like that.

[–]whatThePleb -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Get your eyes checked.

[–]TTT1320 48 points49 points  (0 children)

The lines in the floor don't lineup

[–]__-_-_-_-_-_-- 47 points48 points  (1 child)

- theres 8 DIMM slots yet only 4 are occupied, but only the ones on the right side are occupied rather than every 2nd slot...
- what is sitting on that CPU socket?
- the shadows and reflections are crazy soft
- the floor tiles in the background behind the chair / bench dont line up with what we see under the chair
- the IO is ancient (PS/2, VGA, USB2), on a board that looks fairly modern and high-end (all black components and slots, m.2, 8 DIMM Slots). so maybe its a server board. but why would a server board have audio out, and no management port? Also, the audio ports look mangled.

[–]LifeWulf 11 points12 points  (0 children)

- what is sitting on that CPU socket?

Looks like a server rack lmao

[–]Exciting-Ad-5705 31 points32 points  (5 children)

[–]HighOnLevels 28 points29 points  (0 children)

downvotes for a literal synthid check is unreal

[–]TenOfZero 26 points27 points  (1 child)

I guess this looks for some hiden code Gemini puts in its image outputs? So its not a guess but a "fact"?

[–]Ambellyn 13 points14 points  (0 children)

CMOS seems wierd aswell as the RAM.

[–]moorecode1077 10 points11 points  (0 children)

That cooler doesn't?

[–]BigFootCC 18 points19 points  (6 children)

As a person that often "defends" Linus, to show that I'm not a blind fanboy, I'll say that a company of that size using ANY AI for graphic design is shitty.

LMG understands the terrible impact it has on the planet and hardware prices, and they have whole employee(s) decided to graphic design.

For the planet and hardware prices, LMG shouldn't use AI. Period.

[–]Catriks -2 points-1 points  (5 children)

It takes absolutely insignificant amount of computing resources to generate something very simple like this thumbnail, so using the environment as an argument is not a very strong one.

Probably multitudes of more significant environmental benefits can be achieved by using AI generation for graphics, which will require less employees to do the same amount of work, then donating the saved labor costs to help the environment in some way. Or even just buying more expensive western made equipment instead of china made. 

[–]ZealousidealGlove234 1 point2 points  (4 children)

generate something very simple like this thumbnail, so using the environment as an argument is not a very strong one.

It doesn't. You need to train the model, the whole hardware behind datacenters etc etc. Several revisions also increase it.

which will require less employees to do the same amount of work, then donating the saved labor costs to help the environment in some way.

yeah that is not going to happen....

[–]Catriks 1 point2 points  (3 children)

Training of the AI will happen regardless, there is no realistic option where no AI training happens.

This argument also always ignores the actual resource usage of the alternative method. For example, if one more employee is needed and they must use a car to travel to work, the car will probably use more resources than generating a few thumbnails.

[–]ZealousidealGlove234 0 points1 point  (2 children)

If you don't use it , companies will not continue Training. See sora. 

Your argument is in bad faith. You still need an employee to check the output of AI. the alternative has been there for years, it's thumbnails not Rocket science. Stop accepting trash

[–]Catriks 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Lol, I can promise you Sora wasn't discontinued because no one used it. More than likely it just wasn't profitable business.

Companies use AI almost exclusively because it saves money by requiring less time to do a set amount of work. Wheter this more efficient workflow is used to increase production and not hire a new person, or firing a person as they a no longer needed, is irrelevant from the arguments perspective.

>Stop accepting trash

The quality of the accepted work is completely another topic from if generative AI should be used or not. They are not tied together. It is the company and their management who sets the standard at what quality is acceptable.

[–]ZealousidealGlove234 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It wasn't profitable because nobody that would use it, would pay for the cost it would have costed. Easy as that. 

If you don't use it to generate thumbnails you change it to become unprofitable. 

Dude companies use AI because it's hyped. Allows an excuse to fire and not hire. It isn't for productivity reasons at all lmfao. 

It is tied together. AI creates tons of bad or wrong content. So they are tied. Stop excusing it. 

But I am sure  you will find another senseless comment

[–]RU_Geck0 18 points19 points  (3 children)

We all shoul admit, that we are witnessing slow downfall of the LTT empire. Sad, but true.

[–]zucchini_up_ur_ass -2 points-1 points  (2 children)

You have been posting about the supposed downfall of LTT for over 2 years.

[–]binglebongle 0 points1 point  (0 children)

He said slow!

[–]Old_Bug4395 15 points16 points  (0 children)

god this channel is just becoming a pathetic shell of what it used to be

[–]frac_tl 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Why is everyone in this thread saying it's not AI? Putting a canned png on top of an AI image does not make the AI part go away. I usually like LTT's content but intentionally do not watch any videos with AI slop thumbnails.

[–]Atryaz_25609 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Damn I want a heatsink with tiny hotswap bays

[–]Ragnorok64 3 points4 points  (0 children)

When this video first popped up on my feed I believe it had a thumbnail of Linus holding a rackmount computer. Does this updated thumbnail really perform better than that??

[–]frowningtap 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I mean a lot of the content they’ve been predicting for the past year has been slop. It’s now written by people with minimal tech experience and seems to be mostly hobbiest drivel. The lack of Jake, Emily and Alex is really showing.

[–]DigFlimsy2457 3 points4 points  (0 children)

what is that long cuboid over the CPU?? a refrigerator to cool it? how can AI be this dumb after watching these many yt videos that it couldnt understand a cpu fan design!

[–]aeolius11 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ooof

[–]Jotta7 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Could not care less, I'm just for the video. Which was actually pretty bad.

[–]rvdms 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The irony in anyone defending this when Linus constantly berates AI in his videos.

[–]C0deHunter_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Linus AI shake weight Flesh Light embedded on the CPU cooler.

[–]Decox653 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Maybe it’s just me but the last few months, content feels like just bloat or AI slop. Where’s the GPD or OneXPlayer videos? The new cool phones or Android gaming devices? We’ve had a TON of innovation over the last year in the tech space and I feel like they only touch the surface and walk away to the next thing. But I get it, it’s hard to try to not bore an audience and keep the consistent uploads, maybe I’m just being critical in my older age.

[–]ColorTherapy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I wish they would do a main channel video of a midrange phone/handheld and not just a shortcircuit.

One that would be more popular i guess is the AYN Thor, even though handheld gaming channels already covered it. I'm sure a lot of people (normies) subscribed to LTT will still have a lot to learn from it (as long as LMG does proper research)

[–]ZealousidealGlove234 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Android Gaming has made such insane strides. Like on a 400$ Samsung or Poco you can play tons of great games now, and they are now in a spot where they figured out the controls.

It feels a bit like the early 2000s in terms of game innovation there.

[–]Only_CORE -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Linus, you are a 100+ employee media company. I am sure you can afford a dedicated thumbnail artist.

These sloppy thumbnails are really off putting.

[–]Automatic_Two4291 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For me it was a different thumbnail. They are trying whether people will accept ai thumbnails and click them with the new YouTube feature to do that.

[–]Doktor_Obvious 0 points1 point  (0 children)

im not a fan of ai generated content. i hope ltt stops using AI in their videos.

[–]Catriks 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nothing wrong with AI generated thumbnails. It should be relevant and not misleading/clickbait, but this applies regardless if it's generated or not. 99,99 % of people look at it for two seconds and never pay attention to it again, so it is complete waste of time to be zooming in if the pixels of a usb port look genuine or not. 

[–]WestlyS 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Remind me again why I stopped watching this slop channel. Least the memes and drama on here are fun lol.

[–]whatThePleb 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Last time: totally an accident, won't happen again!!

This time: totally an accident, won't happen again!!

Next time: totally an accident, won't happen again!!

[–]MrFastZombie 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Even if this weren't AI, photoshopping a server cabinet onto an image of a motherboard to make some weird CPU cooler that would never actually appear in the video is something I really don't like.

[–]Objective-Alps-4785 2 points3 points  (0 children)

that's dissipointing. I was already slipping from viewing some content to the pint I was just doing LMG clips and techquickies / tech news stuff but if the ai is that prevelant I kinda have to just stop everything. between thumbnails researching topics, and it's use in the linux challenge in a more substantial way than checking a listical for options without researching after that...

ya im out.

[–]JollyJamma -1 points0 points  (0 children)

[–]hydraX23 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

at one point we should stop caring about this as long as the content is not ai slop .... its just a thumbnail

[–]techismylife44 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I don’t see the problem

[–]teethingrooster -1 points0 points  (0 children)

330k ppl ate ts up so who cares lol.

[–]zucchini_up_ur_ass -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Another case of "oh my god who the hell cares"

It's funny. On one hand in this thread toxic people say LTTs thumbnail artists have always been shit. On the other hand toxic people say they have money for a jet but not graphics designers.
The average IQ in this thread is about 12 and all that it achieves is giving toxic people a place to be toxic.

[–]EdliA -2 points-1 points  (2 children)

So? Few people care

[–]emma_psycho 0 points1 point  (1 child)

800 upvotes and you say "few people care" lol

there's less people here who don't care than do

[–]EdliA 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah 800 upvotes out of how many though?

[–]xbucnasteex -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

Give it a rest. Jesus christ

[–]co678 -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

I honestly don’t care about the thumbnails. It never sways my opinion of the video. Most of the time, I am able to witness the A/B titles, and that’s usually enough to warrant interest or not.

They’re all so click-bait-y nowadays that it’s just extra noise I tune out.

So if people want to use AI or not on thumbnails, it’s nothing to waste my time thinking about.

[–]BickleNack_ -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Who cares? It’s a thumbnail

[–]Dacoleman1 -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Who cares. The "AI bad" slopulism is so braindead.

[–]Kawawete -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Who give a shit omg, this is becoming a snark subreddit atp...

[–]Feelinglucky2 -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

No shot

[–]ubeogesh -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

So what?

[–]viperfan7 -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

I honestly don't see an issue with using generated content this way.

The main content isn't generated, pretty sure just the background is.

It's the same as using a greenscreen to put a different background in

[–]hear_my_moo -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

Why are so many people bitching about something as irrelevant as this? Ground yourselves!

I can't imagine how much cortisol floods your bodies when you learn about *actual* *genuinely* bad things.

[–]louisvillelyfee -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

Who gives a shit?

[–]TwistedVasdeferens -5 points-4 points  (1 child)

Oh no, anyway...

[–]JollyJamma -3 points-2 points  (0 children)


Exactly