More than 20% of videos shown to new YouTube users are 'AI slop', study finds

More than 20% of videos shown to new YouTube users are 'AI slop', study finds(theguardian.com)

75 points by schu 170 days ago | 25 comments

DoctorOW 170 days ago |

YouTube (and really any social media) was kind of a mistake. You can argue traditional mass media was imperfect, but at least it was up to public scrutiny. An algorithm is manipulative in a much more opaque way.

scotty79 170 days ago | |

YouTube is amazing repository of millions of practical skills and knowledge. It's achievement at least on par with Wikipedia. Calling it a mistake just because there's some entertainment there as well that not everybody is fond of is a bit harsh.

DoctorOW 170 days ago | | |

I would say the funding model is what makes the difference.

Wikipedia sells information (in the form of "Donate or this could all go away") and is financially incentivized to make that information comprehensive and high quality. YouTube sells influence, and it is precisely that practice I object to.

Think about the videos on your homepage, in your recommended videos, which publishers you hear from immediately and which disappeared. I can see it trying to manipulate me.

brendyn 169 days ago | | |

You can download the entirety of Wikipedia. YouTube is blocking YouTube downloaders. It's a crime against humanity that they lured people into to contribute videos to this platform. By losing money for years before being acquired, they ensured nobody could possibly compete with their own video platform. Its not a nonforprofit or library. They can freely censor, restrict, and edit videos as they please, especially for deceased accounts.

blharr 169 days ago | | |

Except it's also a battleground for a ton of insidious recommendations that now distract you instead of educate you.

I know many people who spend 10 hours+ a day just listening to inflammatory content

It's also not just the consumers. So many great educational channels have been forced to appeal to click bait or lower quality content because of the nature of the platform

The_President 169 days ago | |

Seems like a mistake to rely on it for anything other than entertainment or simple education. Perhaps what makes it a mistake is now it's yet another vehicle for distraction content gaming for attention space. Parents will attest, that it's wonderful to put a tablet in front of a child to instantly hush them, but then it becomes a dependency where it is increasingly harder to control outbursts of emotion without resorting to the tablet. It's become a like a drug to children, and the mistake is in seeing the process as benevolent until this far along.

bfkwlfkjf 169 days ago | | |

> Seems like a mistake to rely on it for anything other than entertainment

I disagree, shouldn't be used even for entertainment. Going to YouTube for entertainment and relying on it to guide you is how you end up being radicalised on certain topics.

tehwebguy 169 days ago |

Make sure to always select “Don’t recommend this channel” for garbage

bfkwlfkjf 169 days ago | |

I'm not gonna be working for Google for free. If they want me to do this they can pay.

andsoitis 169 days ago | | |

The idea of downvoting channels or videos like this is to punish the channel / poster.

aeternum 170 days ago |

YouTube already slaps creators with demonetization for a wide array of topics and copyright strikes for minor sound clips.

They could easily require creators to label videos that have AI-generated video and also build detection tools themselves. Will they?

add-sub-mul-div 170 days ago | |

Google is in the business of selling slop creation tools. They want you to consume it, they don't want to provide ways to filter it out.

blibble 170 days ago | | |

I assume the end game is youtube will eventually almost entirely be their own slop

at which point they won't have to pay pesky creators

Bender 169 days ago |

That 20% becomes 90+% if one accidentally clicks on the AI slop which tells me that Youtube somehow know they are AI slop and are profiteering off it thus it will never go away in my opinion. If I click on that crap I have to exit the browser, run Bleachbit and start over again. I never log into Youtube and now I am extra careful to avoid clicking on that crap.

galkk 169 days ago |

One of most brutal things is amount of slop on kids channels.

Huntrx singing soda pop, Lego singing soda pop, Sonic singing soda pop, ponies singing soda pop… the amount of slop there is brutal

. I literally don’t see any way to approach it except just banning YouTube and downloading and curating videos in advance.

jenthoven 168 days ago | |

In Australia, kids aren't allowed to have YouTube accounts anymore, which means that they'll get served this generic lineup of shorts described in this article. 33% brain rot....I wonder if kids will see more and more brainrot since the algorithm doesn't know anything about them. Tabula rasa.

favflam 170 days ago |

I started seeing AI slop of US military members celebrating their 1776 USD "bonus".

upupupandaway 170 days ago |

I constantly think whether it’s viable to build robust software to get rid of slop, AI or non AI. I see tough challenges (platforms don’t care), but also see value. Does anyone have an opinion?

tim333 170 days ago | |

It would probably be good if it worked. Not quite sure how you'd automatically detect it.

blharr 169 days ago | | |

Before you used to manage your own subscriptions or communities to join. That was enough. My suggestion would be just having a whitelist for the channels or sources you want to follow that push non-slop content.

bignurgle 169 days ago |

the other 80% is porn-lite, its disgusting