MrBeast says he designed the tool to help smaller creators but "missed the mark"
After a backlash from creators, MrBeast has removed a YouTube thumbnail generator that utilized artificial intelligence (AI). The world's most-subscribed YouTuber, real name Jimmy Donaldson, released the tool last week and said his intention had been "to help smaller creators make better thumbnails".
But he admitted he had "missed the mark" after it was criticised by other high-profile YouTubers, including PointCrow and Jacksepticeye, who said the tool "steals" creators' work.
MrBeast stated in a post on X that he had made the decision to remove the tool from his YouTube analytics platform Viewstats and would replace it with links to human artists who would be willing to work for a fee. According to MrBeast, he "thought people were going to be pretty excited about it" when he launched the AI thumbnail tool last week. Any YouTuber's strategy relies heavily on the small preview images, which are used to entice potential viewers as they scroll through a sea of content. Mr Beast's tool was advertised as "taking the guesswork out" of designing eye-catching images for an $80 (£58) per month subscription.
It gave users the option to insert themselves into existing thumbnails and recreate the work of other creators.
Generative AI - or GenAI - tools such as this are trained on mountains of exisiting data, which are then used to create outputs in response to user prompts.
There are currently a number of court cases examining allegations of copyright theft against AI model-making businesses. PointCrow, real name Eric Morino, accused MrBeast of making "something that can steal... hard work without a thought" and alleged that the AI model was "clearly trained on all our thumbnails and uses them without any creator's permission".
While the US streamer said the intention of making content creation more accessible was a "great idea", the tool "fundamentally hurts creators as a whole".
Beast Games, based on the Netflix hit Squid Game, saw Jeffrey Randall Allen win a significant cash prize. MrBeast acknowledged the feedback and told his followers: "I care more than any of you could ever imagine about the YouTube community.
"Obviously I'm the biggest YouTuber in the world and I don't take that responsibility lightly and so it deeply makes me sad when I do something that people in the community are upset by."
He stated that the creation of tools to assist creators was his goal with Viewstats, "but if creators don't want the tools, no worries." The US YouTuber is thought to be the site's highest-paid creator, with over 385 million subscribers. He has a number of other business ventures and last year hosted Beast Games, an Amazon series which saw 1,000 people competing in a series of elimination challenges for a $5m (£3.9m) cash prize.
The series was named in a lawsuit where some contestants claimed they'd been "exploited" during filming - allegations MrBeast said had been "blown out of proportion".
In May, the Mexican government accused him of "exploiting" the Mayan pyramids for a video and the month before he had to apologise after fans had a "horrible" experience at a Las Vegas event in his name.
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