A new experimental feature may soon let you create anything you can dream of in your Shorts.

What’s stopping you from featuring a panda that drinks coffee in your content? Well, the strict guidelines of sensible reality, of course.

YouTube says: No! Why let ourselves be restricted by the forces of nature. It’s time to unleash the full potential of our creativity and unlock the imaginative potential of all our minds. Or, perhaps empower the creation of millions of meaningless videos that don’t even require the effort to record anymore…

Create any visuals with YouTube Dream Screen

YouTube have just announced the development of their upcoming feature, Dream Screen. It’s an experimental new tool that harnesses the power and unlimited potential of AI to create images and videos based on prompts.

This quite literally means: If you can imagine it, you can create it.

YouTube mention both AI-generated video and image backgrounds will be produced by their new tool.

Whilst this is fantastic for unlocking the creativity of creators who don’t have the means or budget to produce their ideas (not many of us are in Ari Aster’s position to create that attic scene in Beau is Afraid just because we thought of it…), it also raises some questions.

This feature – whilst very cool – also threatens a plague of mediocre, AI-generated content that, without the limitations of spending time or effort creating something, end up overwhelming the platform and putting off viewers.

Presumably, YouTube are aware of the threat this could pose to user content and have safeguards in mind. Certainly, for its initial future launch they will be allowing an exclusive cast of creators to try Dream Screen out.

They do state that their plan is to release their AI visuals generator “more broadly” next year, adding: “In the future, we’ll expand to features that will allow anyone to instantly reimagine their videos by simply typing in an idea to edit their content or remix existing YouTube videos.”

How will it work?

We don’t have many details on Dream Screen just yet. However, based on the concerns above we can take a guess at how it might work.

For a start, with AI-generated video and its potential to wash out genuine creator content, there will likely be restrictions in how it is used. Perhaps it will be a tool that can be used only in conjunction with original clips, preventing users from uploading solely AI produced content.

This is subtly suggested by Dream Screen’s proposed purpose of creating AI-generated image backgrounds. This makes sense, as a tool for creating imaginative green screens of the users’ choice to perform in front of.

As a visual tool that allows creators to add to their live or non-AI-generated content, Dream Screen will be a fantastic addition to users toolsets without infringing on original content.

However, it’s too early to say. We will have to wait and see exactly what YouTube have planned for this major tool, and whether creators need to look over their shoulders.