About half the videos recommended to me on YouTube are AI Slop
OK sometimes it is only a quarter to a third, but it seems too, that the AI Channel Blocker extension, is identifying a few thousand new ones daily.
It is really not a good situation. Quite a few do declare that their content is generated largely by AI, and some much of that is entertainment or documentary type content. But what is more alarming to me is just today and yesterday something seemed off about a cooking channel, run by a charming Italian grandmother. As she was stirring the fried egg, the yolk disappeared, and then reappeared. So I asked Gemini to check the channel, and yes the response was, that it was clearly an AI generated channel (video and narration). But nowhere in the description did it declare that fact.
Today I see another cooking channel but an American grandmother, with 100,000's of views and it just seemed so similar. And yes, Gemini says it was likely using the same templates as the other channel, with the theme being varied. Lots of comments there complimenting the grandmother and asking her questions, none of which she has responded to.
I do see the odd person though calling the channel out, something referring to the grandmother as Mrs Claude. I'm also getting way better now at picking out that way that the AI narration does the intros and the wind-ups.
Not so long ago I saw a channel that was highlighting which “medical” channels were actually AI faked doctors, and then highlighting all the errors that could be seen.
So, yes I am using the AI Channel Blocker extension, and contributing blocks myself. This is just a mess, and it is now difficult to know which channels are truly at least properly curated by a human.
Worst is, the slop generation gets rewarded with cash. Advertisers are only interested in views, and views are certainly being clocked up big time. That rewarding is also the reason this exists. No-one is really going to worry about generating this on platforms that are not monetised. So thank you, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc as you are all driving this behaviour.
I'm not against AI generation for the sake of it. As long as it is clearly identified as such, and some human is actually checking it carefully like they would have done for their own creation. In other words if a recipe is being shared, then you have actually made and eaten it yourself. I get that not everyone has artistic talent (I certainly don't have) and I've had AI create some slides for me, but I dictate exactly what bullet points I want shown.
In YouTube's case, if Gemini can easily identify a channel as AI generated, then which is YouTube not at least forcing the AI declaration on for those channels? Also, they can offer a toggle for people who don't want to see AI generated content.
Maybe it's time to now have “Certified Human” logos on some channels?
#technology #AI #AIslop #youtube
