AI Slop Report: the Global Rise of Low-Quality AI Videos

Platforms like YouTube and TikTok already have almost full control of how the majority of users spend their time on their platforms. They open the app, they immediately get a feed of content algorithmically selected to keep them on the app for as long as possible. They don't need to search, they don't need to think about what they want to watch, they just consume. Fully automated consumption with 0 human effort involved.

Well, almost. There's one last thing remaining: you still need humans to produce the videos that you then put on people's feeds. Or rather, needed. Now that the actual production can also be automated, those platforms no longer need to put effort into finding existing human-created that will keep people watching - they can just generate new, algorithmically perfect content. This is their endgame.

The other day my mother told me if I watched some random AI slop (Putin getting in a physical fight with Trump) and I asked her why she watches this stuff and her answer is that it comes up in her feed. She said it was funny.

I don't know what to make of any of this.

What makes you think that there is an "end game"?

Someone figured out how to make computers be able to create content that is costly to distinguish from human-made content. Someone else is using it to pump out AI slop in the hopes that it will make them a quick buck. The platform becomes unusable for anyone that values their own sanity. No "end game" to be found.

AI will be the worst thing that happened to society in a very long time.

Same as it ever was. When this cash cow proves worthless or runs out it’ll be another thing.

As such the only purpose is to make money.

YouTube has started banning some AI channels and maybe with time put serious restrictions. Or maybe not, at least not for big channels because 5 min crafts continues to exist despite producing most bizarre, outrageous and down right dangerous content. YouTube needs that sweet advertisement money.

shorts get paid by the view, ppl put on long videos to fall a sleep to and youtube premium does a rev share based on watchtime of the premium user.

this is why you have like 10 hour playlists and white noise videos.

I found the feed with it enabled is much better than disabled and I have it finetuned to be more in line with the niches I care about.

I am also very proactive with marking channels or content I don't prefer with the "Not interested" or "Don't recommend channel".

It's not perfect but it's orders of magnitude better than my logged out or watch history disabled account (though not sure if they have since updated it to not show anything at all)

Though, new AI-slop channels popup some days - esp. new/fresh channels, but these you can ban anyway since most new channels are AI slop. or "XY ... official" or "XY .. best of" or "XY .. clips" or "XY... fails"

It's deliberate, I'm sure. People say they want the vegetables, but then go on to watch hours of fast food / Shorts. Clearly the algorithm knows.

People are addicted to YouTube but I think the key to the healthy watching habits would be restricting the screen time.

Someone knowing about things he's interested in has few problems separating the new and informative content and if he had, say, two hours a week for watching he'd probably enjoy what he sees.

Two hours is just an estimate I came up with, it can be an two hours a month or hour a day. The important thing is that YT just doesn't create enough real new information and after that it is just slop and brain rot, regardless of your habits and filters.

I follow N YouTubers who produce genuinely useful and insightful videos on the state of the market and personal finance etc, but the algorithm just recommends people with stock tips and scaremongering junk

Worst are imho on the regular long vids side, the geopolitical advisor deep fakes, giving background to the news. Some with well over a million followers. Many of those have the same "we are a fan of the real person" disclaimer, many have no disclaimer.

And no one in the comments, of which many look fake too, notices it is AI. That is the most scary part.

I saw a video I wanted to share with someone, but it was part of a compilation. So you just search for it, right?

So I searched "cat lets brick fall onto mouse" and got... 100000 AI generated videos of cats with bricks? And cats with mice and cats being rescued by people (like you said). But not the video I was looking for.

We've totally passed the point where real information is impossible to find anymore. Video generation was really out of reach / delayed for a long time, and honestly all of those probably have a digital watermark in them that could be detected. YouTube could have prevented this if they'd have just been more proactive with detection and filtration. A simple "AI generated" and "not AI generated" filter would have prevented this.

I've posted an article on this matter: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46121555

It's not possible and it's not economically viable. Best we could do is some sort of signature to prove that the source of a video is trusted by the proof issuer.

I was thinking the same thing recently after reading a statement by Deezer that their AI music detector now flags more than a third of newly added music. Even if it gets no listens, all that junk has to be processed, stored, and kept available.

Now Facebook/insta shorts, they are somehow just trash. But maybe that is because I don’t follow any creators on those platforms.

Which also reinforces already declining literacy rates.

Does it? Last time I tried YouTube search it was useless. It showed two or three relevant results, then a bunch of shorts, then a long list of totally unrelated "you might also like" results.

Not to say that some of his work is not useful though.

Have you ever found a 10/10 on your own?

If so it's possible you were recommended that by an algorithm but you just didn't register it, because a human recommendation is more of a memorable event.

But "fortunately" for me, on my main account, my feed is 80%+ decent stuff - science channels, AOPA safety videos - stuff like that. But my other account has absolutely terrible suggestions on the algorithm, so it probably varies a ton on how much and what you watch.

Watch with the sound turned up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ1ZYGHmtN8

But taking into account all the thousands of not-so-good recommendations I guess you are right