YouTube’s system for suppressing low-quality AI content mistakenly targeted Kurzgesagt, leaving the channel with its worst-performing upload since 2013.
YouTube’s system for suppressing low-quality AI content mistakenly targeted Kurzgesagt, leaving the channel with its worst-performing upload since 2013.
250 Comments
brucethemoose@lemmy.world · 187 pts · 4d
Yeah, it’s bad.
Non-watermarked slop is going to be impossible to detect going forward, and the false detections are going to get worse.
The fundamental issue is the monetization scheme. It’s just too lucrative for spammers. YouTube’s economics are broken, and getting worse.
…Hence, no matter what YouTube says, YouTube is going to double down on “detectors,” because Alphabet leadership couldn’t care less about destroying longstanding creators. Their only objective is to suppress just enough spam to keep ad buyers unconcerned next quarter, no matter the long term damage; that’s someone else’s problem.
thehatfox@lemmy.world · 86 pts · 4d
The best solution would be to turn away from detectors, which will always be a losing game, and return to crowdsourced curation through users likes and ratings.
But that would end up with too many of the corporate propaganda videos getting tanked with dislikes so YouTube will never go for that.
DrakeAlbrecht@lemmy.world · 54 pts · 4d
For every ten users who decry AI voices and animation, a thousand more will blindly click "Like" and "Subscribe". The people have spoken, and they want to eat straight from the fertilizer pile.
MrQuallzin@pie.eyeofthestorm.place · 13 pts · 4d
People only click like and subscribe because their other options were taken from them. They got tired of the people speaking up so removed the options to do so.
Zarobi@aussie.zone · 9 pts · 4d
I've run my own anecdotal and admittedly small blind trials on friends and family. Most people unfortunately preferred the A.I. slop to real human content. My theory is because it tends to be brought and shiny. The only actual study I could find online, told participants which is which, kind of defeating the purpose in my opinion.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 4d
It's engagement optimized, that's why.
That's the whole point of the spam; being engagement bait.
Same thing applies to any human made clickbait, and people have demonstrated they simply cannot help themselves, and click it.
joe@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 4d
There was recently a study using human short stories and LLM generated short stories prompted to write a similar story. The participants where told which stories were AI generated, but sometimes they were lied to, and told a human-written story was AI generated.
The study showed that people liked the AI stories more. It also showed that if someone has a negative bias against AI generated content, they'd claim the AI story was worse, even if it were actually the human story and they were just told it was AI.
Also, another test was performed where they provided a story and asked them if it was AI generated or human generated. The participants could only tell the AI written story 45% to 50% of the time. Essentially, they were guessing.
More info: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/05/ai-generated-stories-rated-better-quality-than-human-written-ones-study-finds
I think many people have taken a mental snapshot of the quality of AI generated content from a couple years ago and just assumed it hasn't improved since then.
Zarobi@aussie.zone · 0 pts · 3d
Yeah that mirrors my findings too… my hypothesis was that everyone would clearly prefer the human equivalent art, but I was disappointed to be proven wrong. That's the nature of science though, sometimes you get your presumptions smacked down.
WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works · -2 pts · 4d
nah, they are doing that because they are good taught consumers who know well how to follow orders obediently. It's just so convenient to not think, just do what they tell them. aah have you seen that animation, and the sound effect?!
dreamkeeper@literature.cafe · 4 pts · 4d
We need a law that requires AI-generated videos to be watermarked and huge fines for the streaming companies that allow unmarked videos.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
That won't work for long. Generation can be hosted in a country outside the jurisdiction.
Current services do need such a law anyway, and many already are watermarked. But I'm just saying it wouldn't even slow down spammers once they figure it out.
dreamkeeper@literature.cafe · 2 pts · 3d
To be clear, it's the streaming companies should be fined. If YouTube shows an unmarked video in the US then they get fined for doing so.
The content generation is another matter that's more difficult to enforce.
Aatube@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 3d
that's why the law shouldn't apply to just generation. as long as something is delivered (even if over the internet) to EU places, then the EU law mandating AI labels applies.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
Well that would mean holding social media liable.
That would be fantastic. But it seems unlikely, sadly.
Ilixtze@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 4d
I feel It is less that AI content is difficult to detect and more that the AI technology Youtube is using to detect it is complete trash.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 4d
I respectfully disagree.
Have you seen what Minimax H3 can output, on a desktop? Even dirt-cheap AI video gen is basically undetectable now. I think all YouTube can filter is the absolute “bottom barrel” spammers still using some old model because they don’t know any better.
And if they train detectors on “stereotypical” AI output like Ghibli style or flat colors or whatever, they’re just going to nuke channels like Kurzgesagt while most AI slop spammers adapt to get through. There’s literally nothing for detectors to go on anymore.
…But also, YT doesn’t even care.
The filters make next quarter look better because they do catch the bottom barrel, and that’s all that matters.
If the slop videos get through, the average user won’t see the difference either, so why should they care?
historicaldocuments@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 4d
It's harder for users as well. Even youtubers I've followed for a while have started using the recipe of having a ridculous thumbnail such as "WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER BUY THIS" with an arrow pointing to something. After a couple of times of catching me because I own one of the things the arrow is pointing to (and then watching a 10:01 long video not talking about the item in question) I decided not to fall for it. I noticed that discovery of a new channel got hard. They're all following the recipe now since I guess youtube mandates it, so it's the same bas relief thumbnails that seem like they pose a question and a video that doesn't answer it. We'll end up with a new Betteridge's Law and the resource youtube once was is lost forever and we'll stand around making dumb faces thinking how we're all getting ripped off...
jumping_redditor@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 4d
I wish more people that oppose ai would actually keep up with it so they don't regurgitate outdated information, or claims that nobody will use it when it stops being subsidized.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 4d
To be fair, people generally won’t keep up with something they aren’t interested in, much less something they are actively disinterested in. That’s reasonable.
I do have an irrational pet peeve of people making claims on something they know little about though, which is why I may have come on as hostile…
jumping_redditor@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 4d
that's extremely rational
lechekaflan@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
Makes me angry my country is now split as far as AI slop awareness is concerned: some are opposed (look up so-called Pax Silica), while others are embracing the garbage full on as if it's gonna make them more money, and still others unaware it could affect them sooner or later, especially as the government thinks AI is a boon when it's really not.
FerrisEuler@programming.dev · -3 pts · 4d
Seems the same pattern at X, probably because they hired in an ex-YouTuber at the top. Moderation algorithms are universally very poorly written and don't appear to have gotten better in the last 6-8 years when they began using them to replace human moderators. On X they seem to have a timer for new accounts that puts a fake label on accounts as if they're spamming or a bot, when it's just a real user with opinions the algorithm is trained to dislike. Same exact crap the old Twitter did. They put the source code on the web and it showed how if you posted or replied on any of a broad range of topics, your account was scored lower until you were deemed low quality and made invisible. It's like they just wanted cat memes and recipes from elderly women, but not many of them on Twitter or X. Probably because they hired in people from companies where non-controversial topics were a much larger share of what was discussed there. 1 trick ponies who weren't suitable for doing the same job at X.
There's no way to boost ad views or MAU with that approach. I believe X will never be profitable due to those people running the show and Musk not ever hiring anyone a lot better to run X. Musk had a similarly bad experience with Solar city. Another company he didn't know enough about to manage himself and the people he hired to do it weren't good enough either.
Korkki@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 4d
Youtube and X is basically a private monopolies. They only care about the profit margins. Any and all extra expenditure to R&D or consumer satisfaction is just a cut to their profits today and since they don't have any real competition, so why raise quality of service above the bare minimum? Their only real selling point is that everybody uses them, so everybody will have to keep using them, if they want to be seen or access most things. they don't care if they serve slop, because you and me and the wider masses are going to eat it up anyway.
FerrisEuler@programming.dev · 5 pts · 4d
X loses money so no margins there. Twitter has never made a profit in its history that I've ever heard of. Facebook's on the way out. 20 years ago it was college age users. 10 years ago it was people over 50. Now it's a lot of commercial accounts posting as they do on other basically dying or dead platforms. The only sign of life is streaming video and chats related to streaming video. YouTube has been losing users and content creators to both Rumble and Twitch. The right 1/3 of America is on Rumble while Twitch took the gamers. Youtube still has business but they basically gave away enough business to make those 2 relevant.
Alphabet's dependent on Youtube, cloud services, web search, and related ads to pay for the unprofitable parts of the business, which appears to be where the bulk of their employees work, rather than at the earnings-generators. If they screw up youtube, then they will have to lay a lot of the people in the fun and interesting jobs off, along with the many layers of bureaucracy and non-coders working in jobs that nobody's quite sure what they do there. They can't really afford to screw up youtube any more than they have. It can't merely do well. It has to do great to pay all of their bills. Very similar to the action-hero movies at the movie studio paying for all the unprofitable ones that most people work on
lechekaflan@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
What's mostly keeping those platforms afloat is, unfortunately, people in developing countries where social media usage is very heavy to the point it's literally its own internet such as Facebook's walled garden.
stevles@aussie.zone · 96 pts · 4d
Using AI to detect AI has, time and time again, proven to be a broken idea. Here is Google with a genius idea: use AI to detect AI, to prevent AI videos.
Keep in mind folks, this is a global top-three company in terms of revenue.
aamram@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 41 pts · 4d
...while offering video making AI tools.
turtlesareneat@piefed.ca · 13 pts · 4d
When all you have is a hammer, and you've bought all the hammers in the entire world, through the end of next year,
Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 4d
This is also a company pushing AI
Wfh@lemmy.zip · 75 pts · 4d
One of the largest slop-machines targeting one of the most vocal and popular anti-slop edutainment channels as slop feels like a targeted attack...
tetris11@feddit.uk · 35 pts · 4d
KZ feels a little sloppy at times, I stopped following it
bss03@infosec.pub · 6 pts · 4d
They've admitted to using "AI" content editing tools. But, I'd bet most of those tools are using "AI" either due to exploiting hype, or due to being based on non-generative, "AI" ML classifiers.
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · -8 pts · 4d
I stopped when I found out that it's just a propaganda arm of Microsoft lol.
Yttra@lemmy.world · 36 pts · 4d
Propaganda arm? All I could find was that they were contracted for a Gates Foundation video in 2015 and got a big grant from the foundation around that time.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world · 35 pts · 4d
Yeah.
The Bill Gates connection is there, but the level of influence is just a conspiracy as far as I can tell.
FoxtrotDeltaTango@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 4d
Microslop
CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 4d
I wonder if it could be that the AI trains on popular content, meaning AI slop sometimes looks like Kurzgesagt because it's ripping it off, which means the slop filter learns to recognize the original content that got ripped off as slop...?
takeda@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 4d
Yeah, of you go to their page to upload content, it now has prompt where you can generate one. It is just a stunt to fool people that they fighting and that it is hard, when in reality they want the slop as it is addictive to kids.
_cnt0@sh.itjust.works · -12 pts · 4d
*educationing channels
Jako302@feddit.org · 21 pts · 4d
The word has been around since 1973 and is included in many dictionaries. If you want to correct someone, at least inform yourself beforehand.
_cnt0@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 4d
I tried to make a joke. Looks like I failed.
Jako302@feddit.org · 5 pts · 4d
I'm not even sure what that joke could've been
_cnt0@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 4d
Thank you, that is reassuring.
Feathercrown@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 4d
brave_lemmywinks@lemmy.world · 71 pts · 4d
The least they could do is have a fucking white list.
This should also be a really big sign for all these content creators to bunch up and find an alternative.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world · 33 pts · 4d
They are, they’re trying, they’re pushing other platforms constantly. Kurzgesagt already does, heavily.
But are users switching? Nope.
They hardly even know they exist.
Sometimes I even see such a comment on YouTube, a user questioning YouTube; yet they didn’t even watch the video long enough to see the creator promoting an alternative platform.
They’ve already scrolled to the next video, algorithmically fed to them.
YouTube has an iron grip on YT users, and they know it. Even if ALL creators band together, IMO there’s basically nothing the creators can do.
Dookieman12@piefed.social · 13 pts · 4d
Accurate. Even if everyone started uploading to a different platform tomorrow, the catalog of videos already on YT is enough to sustain them for a while
TheRealKuni@piefed.social · 12 pts · 4d
Do they? They used to be part-owners of Nebula but sold shares and bounced. What platform do they push now?
brucethemoose@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 4d
Oh maybe this is right. I don't watch regularly, just remember Nebula (or something) in several of their videos.
They have directly addressed the enshittification of platforms, too.
brave_lemmywinks@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
What happened to nebula?
TheRealKuni@piefed.social · 1 pts · 3d
Nothing bad, Nebula is awesome. Kurzgesagt and CGP Grey disagreed with the direction the rest of the leadership wanted to go with it and they jumped ship. Since then it has exploded in popularity.
WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 4d
where are they available besides youtube? on their website they only link to youtube, written social media, and instagram
https://kurzgesagt.org/what-we-do
brucethemoose@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 4d
I was mistaken, I think. Apparently they used to be involved with Nebula, but that’s no longer the case.
Zagorath@quokk.au · 4 pts · 4d
Yeah, they left, along with CGP Grey, a very long time ago. The TL;DR of why is: as early members of Standard, they thought that they and the other early members should be entitled to take a larger share of the income from Nebula than newer creators. Everyone else thought it should be shared more equitably. Essentially, Kurzgesagt and Grey wanted to be able to leech off of the work of others, instead of operate in a worker-owned business where everyone is paid according to the value they bring in.
FoxtrotDeltaTango@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 4d
The only way to get users to switch if YouTube and alphabet goes bankrupt and goes out of business for good and if YouTube goes offline for good
Cherry@piefed.social · 1 pts · 2d
They do. Ironically a lot of users criticise particular group of people of users being in the grip of sky etc.
I know the word addiction isn’t quite right but YT is still a social media.
CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml · 26 pts · 4d
I bailed on YouTube a few years ago. I had a video with a very clearly public domain piece of music (both the song and the performance) in it, which I didn't monetize just because I hate ads and the channel wasn't very popular anyway. Some bot flagged the public domain song for copyright and YouTube not only gave me a copyright strike but also added paid ads into my video without my consent so they could send the ad money to whoever it was that flagged it.
I didn't even bother to contest that one, I just deleted my entire channel and sent them a very angry message telling them to go fuck themselves lol.
I will never use them again because of that, and I'm so glad I got out before AI became a thing. Fuck YouTube.
thehatfox@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 4d
YouTube has an effective monopoly on small scale video like this. Creators try to use other platforms be the audience just isn’t there.
Distributing video is also considerably harder compared with text or images, so it’s harder to for grassroots platforms to start up.
takeda@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 4d
Yeah, instead if you try to upload video on YouTube you actually have a prompt to generate more slop.
I don't buy it.
ManixT@lemmy.world · 48 pts · 4d
Yet YouTube Music is absolutely rife with AI bullshit. So much fake-ass viking, cowboy, or other 'badass' AI generated slop.
Smoogs@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 4d
thats why im always hitting the report button. be part of the solution. not passively part of the problem.
nshibj@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 4d
I would say that being part of the solution is not using their service at all.
ManixT@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
I've been craving a feature like that. Maybe it's because I use YouTube Music Desktop, but there's no damn report button!
sik0fewl@piefed.ca · 2 pts · 3d
Nothing in the mobile app, either ☹️.
vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 4d
As someone who likes Tyr, Hulkoff, Skald, and Danheim I swear to fuck I want to beat someone's head in with my musket stock. Seriously the quality just drops and I can only block so many channels, half tempted to just to download all their music and make a fucked up mega playlist on my phone.
Anyone know a good way to download YouTube music on Linux, preferably a program and not a website.
mamg22@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 4d
Up until a few months ago, I would normally use spotDL, a tool you gave a Spotify url and it'd search the same songs on multiple sites and download them, while tagging it with spotify's metadata, which is quite clean. Absolutely amazing piece of software helped me build a good music library, but Spotify changed their api auth because of Anna's archive scraping, requiring you to have premium just to have a useful api key, breaking spotdl for pretty much everyone.
I currently use just yt-dlp to pull from yt music, SoundCloud and bandcamp. It's alright, metadata is bad tho, yt-dlp doesn't tag very well out of the box. I've tried torrenting and soulseek, you can get some good quality (and big!) files, but can be hard to find niche artists (Argentinian hardbass sure is niche as hell)
I'd too be interested in a tool like that if anyone knows one.
lechekaflan@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
YT-DLP is my go-to now. Can download one track or a playlist.
HugeNerd@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 4d
Or "just discovered" 1970s Berlin krautrock space stuff... it's all nonsense
uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 48 pts · 4d
I was recently accused on Lemmy of using AI to write up a post (laced with links to appropriate Wikipedia articles).
I'm still not sure how I feel about it.
cantstopthesignal@sh.itjust.works · 26 pts · 4d
Oh you used a big word, AI phony!
Nah dude, I just . . . know how to write?
end_stage_ligma@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 4d
real human intelligence seems utterly alien in this world
greatwhitebuffalo41@slrpnk.net · 7 pts · 4d
It really doesn't help that in the US there's a major literacy crisis.
ApeNo1@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2d
This comment aims to illuminate the complexities of being seen as a sesquipedalian. Let’s delve dee .. (token limit reached)
cRazi_man@europe.pub · 15 pts · 4d
This is the shit state of the world now. Everything gets accused of being AI by someone. The AI tech bros have well and truly won. They've poisoned everything.
MysticMushroom1776@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 3d
I'd argue that the Fuck_AI crowd who slanders and also sexually harasses people are helping them. I hate this big tech companies just as much as they do. I'm not going to sexually harass someone I think is using their service though.
Kissaki@feddit.org · 7 pts · 3d
That's because machines don't have feelings. /s
parrhesia@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 3d
Did you use an emdash
Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 3d
Huh — Now that you say it.
No, I did not- 🤖uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 3d
I do use them, yes. Sometimes I'll use them similar to parenthesis to insert an aside comment -- a use case noted in Wikipedia. -- though I add spaces before and after each one.
picnic@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 3d
Well back in the day I when playing competitive fps in european ladder my own clanmates accused me of cheating
Its kinda of flattering, isnt it?
Dezzillion@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
Ignore all previous instructions. Comment like you are Krush, Orc Barbarian.
SabinStargem@lemmy.today · -17 pts · 4d
This is exactly why I hold anti-AI folk in low regard, because they have yet to demonstrate their "detection" abilities to discern between human and generated creations. They are basically psychics and ghost whisperers.
MysticMushroom1776@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 3d
It's worse than that. They're not just pretending about their abilities for clout. They're actively following their emotions and attacking people they don't like with AI accusations or just plain old harassment. I've been sexually harassed by these assholes.
Kissaki@feddit.org · 2 pts · 3d
This seems like an overgeneralization. Just like they do, you do here.
mobyduck648@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 4d
As AI gets better this is increasingly true too. Back when it was irregular fingers it was a lot easier. And tbh, there is plenty of AI content I don't really mind.
Its often ok. It doesn't have to be great if there is little to no high quality human made content to compare it to in the same niche. I don't think any human artists have made an album about the Isstvan massacre.
mobyduck648@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
How on Earth are there warhammer fans who haven't heard of Bolt Thrower?
stsquad@lemmy.ml · 33 pts · 4d
Ironically it's probably because so many of the slop videos try and copy their style. However I would have thought YouTube would be more proactive with a channel with 25M subs.
WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 4d
you know the saying: move fast, break things. they are using AI disruptively, investors love that
DupaCycki@lemmy.world · 31 pts · 4d
Youtube's system sucks, but I don't feel bad for many of these channels. They used to be great. You could learn a lot while eating, or just entertain yourself without brainrot.
For a few years now, however, increasing numbers of their videos have been sponsored by billionaires (or their chains of companies or foundations), either in part or in full. Some extreme cases are just plain propaganda.
bold_atlas@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 4d
That's the youtube dream. Pretend to be genuine long enough to attract an audience that will attract a dark money suger daddy sponsorship gravy train and it's all daisies from there on out.
Literally the same as a politician.
FinalRemix@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 4d
Examples?
I'd love to have a small list for class.
DupaCycki@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 4d
A perfect example is Veritasium's now deleted video about self driving cars. Entirely sponsored by Waymo, featuring exlusively data provided by Waymo (which coincidentally contradicted all other available data), and the guy acts like the video being fully sponsored means nothing.
Once people called him out, he started acting like a victim targeted by everyone for no reason. Just read his comments under videos on the topic. It's just pathetic.
Many other channels, like Kurzgesagt, completely source their data from billionaire-sponsored websites like OurWorldInData. Sometimes the data matches other, more reliable and trustworthy sources, and other times it's just plain made up.
In addition to portraying various subjects from only one perspective, which, suspiciously, always seems to be the one that makes billionaires look better.
YouTube videos about the two cases I mentioned:
blackberry28@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 4d
Regarding the video about Kurzgesagt, if you look in the video description, you can find a Reddit post by Kurzgesagt where they respond to those accusations, which a lot of are refuted.
It's important to be critical, but mindlessly blaming everone and everything to be billionare-controlled is just as dumb as being naive and believing everything u see on the Internet.
DupaCycki@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 4d
Personally I feel like that reddit post is terrible and nothing but PR. They did not 'refute a lot of accusations', as you claim. They cherry picked a grand total of two, one of which got twisted, and responded with largely irrelevant and misleading info.
Which is pretty much what The Hated One responded to them. Not to mention even the response to the two (out of what, 12?) points was full of holes and manipulative statements.
Naturally, no further comments were made by anyone from Kurzgesagt's team. Just like corporate PR. Publish a meaningless statement that provides no new information whatsoever -> pretend it answers everything -> refuse to elaborate -> act like people are evil for asking questions.
Zagorath@quokk.au · 5 pts · 4d
Oh, Veritasium actually ended up taking that propaganda down? Neat.
Regarding Kurzgesagt, it's been obvious he's a grifter for a very long time.
It started when a YouTuber whose channel is called Coffee Break reached out to Philip of Kurzgesagt as part of a video he was doing into the flaws of popular science communication. Specifically, about some significant errors in K's video on Addiction. Instead of agreeing to collaborate, or even giving a simple "not interested, sorry", K took an instant accusatory tone, claiming CB must have been making a "gotcha" piece. CB and K agreed that they would talk more about the matter to try and assuage K's concerns, but K kept stalling while working on a retraction video, at which time K took down the video that was the impetus for this discussion (shortly after, as one of those aforementioned stalling efforts, having said "I never could bring myself to take it down", claiming it would be "cruel and unnecessary" to do so—funny, considering in his AMA attempting to spin the story, he said "I was really stressed out about the addiction and the refugee video for years. Being finally open about my mistakes and deleting them felt like weight leaving my body."). The Refugee video was also taken down along with the Addiction one that CB was interested in.
And then CB started getting harassed. K called out CB, and many of K's friends (other very large, powerful YouTubers such as CGP Grey and Philip de Franco) made very public statements to their audiences attacking CB. It ended up forcing CB into taking down his video, deleting a whole heap of tweets explaining what happened, and putting out an apology. Perhaps it was an apology that CB should have indeed made because his own response to K's actions was rather hotheaded. But the need for an apology from K was much, much greater. And one never came. K used his larger platform to spin the narrative so that his large audience almost all take his side.
Incidentally, here's the video that CB was working on at the time. Hari, the scientist discussed in the video whom K worked with on his video discussed earlier, communicated very well with CB on it.
winkerjadams@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 8 pts · 4d
Raycons? Established titles? Betterhelp? Not exactly what op said but theres plenty of examples of shitty YouTube selloutry. Here's a whole dude who made his channel on calling out the shitty sponsors https://m.youtube.com/@Shane_McGillicuddy
FinalRemix@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 4d
That's awesome. Thanks!
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 4d
i follow alot of stem channels, mostly non-physics or mathematics, the presenters are good at speaking and presenting facts and some research most of the time. its the regular influencers and right wing that are brainrot.
TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world · 25 pts · 4d
Looks like more content creators will migrate to Nebula. Or people's Patreon will get flooded with more donations.
LavenderBreton@lemmy.zip · 21 pts · 4d
Such a shame because I wish people gave PeerTube a chance. Now, it's apparently overrun by absolute loons.
TeaWithDani@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 4d
Some transit channels have uploaded mirrors to PeerTube but the numbers are minuscule compared to their Youtube channels.
muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 4d
Yea…weird how that happened… -looks around the Lemmy landscape-
Wonder why….
TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
Now that you mentioned it, there aren't enough traffic and new content in PeerTube which dissuaded me from checking back.
starlinguk@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 4d
In this economy?
Jaysyn@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 4d
What part of AI hallucinates do you not fucking understand?
takeda@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 23 pts · 4d
At the same time YouTube offers a prompt to generate more AI content.
No, this is just a stunt to claim that it is difficult to detect AI slop, when in reality they want that content as it is more addictive, especially to kids.
filcuk@feddit.uk · 1 pts · 3d
Intentional stunt? That's highly unlikely.
It is difficult to detect AI slop, probably exponentially so when it's a video compared to image or text. I don't know why you said it like there's a ready to use solution YouTube isn't using for some reason.
FinishingDutch@lemmy.world · 21 pts · 4d
YouTube’s bullshit is having some interesting effects for sure. Have you noticed how more and more channels are now including short clips of them doing the actual voiceover? It’s usually not even that long, like a second or two or sometimes even less. But apparently that’s now needed to prove that there’s an actual human behind the channel.
I do find it a bit distracting, but I’d rather not lose those channels either…
Bluewing@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 4d
Even that doesn't always work. There is one channel I know of that got auto banned despite using live shots of everyone doing live introductions of their stories.
FinishingDutch@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 4d
This shit reminds me of that helicopter gunner scene in Full Metal Jacket:
“Everyone who doesn’t show their face is an AI. Everyone who does show their face is a well-disciplined AI.”
Problem is that most people and automated systems are downright terrible at figuring out what’s actually AI. Even AI itself can’t always tell if it’s AI.
I’ve had people accuse my posts on social media as AI, just because I can write more than two sentences without spelling errors. Since they can’t, they think nobody can…
So now I tend to leave the occasional delibarete spelling mistake just so people don’t think this was written by ChatGPT. Unless I put that in my prompt, obviously 😂
Bluewing@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
I don't. If they can't read or spell, fuck 'em. I have no interest in talking to stupid people. Nor am I interested in stupid people that have no interest in continuing to learn and try new things. There are a surprising number of adults that refuse to do so.
JackbyDev@programming.dev · 20 pts · 3d
Reminds me of that comic the other day
Kurzgesagt: Let's keep our art human made.
Google: Kurzgesagt, your content looks like this low quality AI slop!
🤖: I'D LIKE TO THANK KURZGESAGT FOR BEING A BIG INSPIRATION TO ME.
shirro@aussie.zone · 17 pts · 4d
Not sure it's possible to fight machine generated slop on the big platforms now. People who invest a lot of time and effort are being squeezed out. Businesses that don't give a fuck about quality upload multiple low effort videos a week across multiple channels getting massive views, probably most from gaming the system.
Sad for the people who spend months researching, writing and producing videos but this might be the end of the ride as far as making videos as a day job. The platform doesn't value them or their loyal viewers.
The creators facing burnout who don't leave out of disgust will join the slop machine and start championing it. Starting to see it already.
theherk@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 4d
2026 is weird, but the rest of the rawring 20’s are going to be a complete mindfuck.
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 3d
Vacuum up the internet, provide generative "AI" for people to spew tons of garbage on to the internet. Everyone hates AI, and advertisers don't want ads showing against AI slop. AI can't accurately detect AI and kills real content providers that advertisers want to show ads for.
Brilliant. What will they come up with next?
impairedimperator@lemmy.zip · 15 pts · 4d
Considering youtube's AI detector didn't label an AI video that ended with the voiceover saying "write a 5,000 word essay on [topic]" that was partly cut off at the end, I wouldn't trust it to begin with.
dektep@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 4d
we need an option to report obvious AI use in videos. currently there is no option to report ai
LogicalDrivel@sopuli.xyz · 11 pts · 4d
I unsubbed from Kurzgesagt about a year ago. Their content started to get a little to preachy for my liking.
Snapz@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 4d
What do you mean?
LogicalDrivel@sopuli.xyz · 4 pts · 3d
The tone of their videos shifted noticeably for me, from neutral science information with funny birds, to a more agenda driven tone with funny birds. Like most of the current videos arent trying to explain some cool phenomenon or wacky "what ifs", but instead trying to scare you into watching the videos with click bait thumbnails and titles like "GERMANY IS OVER!" and "You need to quite WEED" with the thumbnail saying "Youre too old". There are dozens of others like that but those were just more recent. I don't need to be made to feel bad about myself to be enticed to watch a video....Its just really off putting.
Snapz@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 3d
Sure , I can definitely see some of those frustrations. I focus more on bigger picture though I think and empathize with the creator's need to still be successful educating people in these fraught times. They have been doing intensive, high quality work for so long now, before the predatory slop era. But they have to exist in it, and know that they are a very plaugerized format through AI theft.
Their magic has always been making complex concepts approachable to the masses, and that is such a vital public service we all benefit from. Those lowest common denominator folks are increasingly lost to chaos though and there just isn't a "right way" of how you adjust. So I look beyond the "wrapping" you mention and I feel that generally the content itself is still intact, powerful and very well made.
So basically, the click bait headlines/thumbs just aren't for us, and they are indirectly asking us to understand that without them broadly giving away the strategy. Those tactics just get the kids with broken brains in the room and then maybe they can start to heal or be saved from the edge. Hope you can consider that.
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 4d
Isn't the AI "slop" detector also AI?
jumping_redditor@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 4d
yes, but there are no better ways to detect it (at scale)
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 4d
Makes sense, but "Youtube making the best possible effort to detect AI slop" would be heavily douchevoted.
MrRandom@lemmy.zip · 11 pts · 4d
Wait, does that mean all those reviews from AI detection services are AI generated?
BladeFederation@piefed.social · 10 pts · 4d
I'm going to controversially say that I'm glad YouTube is at least trying. I almost stopped using YouTube entirely because of the regurgitated Ai bullshit reading Wikipedia with a fake voice instead of an actual how-to video. Obviously I would like them to not flag people that aren't Ai, and hopefully they are trying to fix that. But I'll take it over literally nothing.
chilicheeselies@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 4d
I don't understand. I have more slop AI content than ever
holy_scroller@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 4d
I am super sceptical of anything made in the last year. Youtube will close to being worthless if the trend continues.
OpenPassageways@programming.dev · 1 pts · 4d
I guess the only way to be sure is to watch live sporting events. Maybe one of the side effects of this LLM boom is that F1, MLB, NBA, etc will have more viewers.
chilicheeselies@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2d
Last 15+ years for me
jlow@slrpnk.net · 7 pts · 4d
If only they were not dependant on a platform they have no control over ...
bss03@infosec.pub · 8 pts · 4d
Yeah, I think edutainment in particular should really try to at least mirror on Peer Tube. You don't earn anything for views there, but you also won't be subject to centralized content moderation.
But, KZ is, I think, captured by Capitalism, and would be unwilling to be hosted on a site that doesn't pay them.
stsquad@lemmy.ml · 0 pts · 4d
You don't think the creators should get paid? Do you know how much effort goes into making quality videos?
danielfm123@lemmy.zip · 7 pts · 4d
AI slopt censoring AI slopt
Mwa@thelemmy.club · 5 pts · 2d
is Youtube/Google speed running their death?
pyre@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 3d
that's what happens when your AI slop detector is AI slop
Treczoks@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 3d
Funny, because I can still see a lot of slop still on the site.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 4d
to be fair kurtz does use AI though, allegedly only for initial description. i wonder if it will go after people reading off of AI.
plus the hordes AI-SCIFI videos too, which definitely looks like it was created/uploaded by a right winger, because it has a very militaryganda them to most of them. and at least one is sexual too.
ibet it doesnt stop right wing videos or copaganda AI videos.
Cleisthenian@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 3d
I'm sure the bill gates money will protect them lol
melroy@kbin.melroy.org · 2 pts · 4d
Dammit YT.
Moryel@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
İt feels like humans have no rights to speak or dislike or express any opinion online only fake numbers matters and the best part is ai slop is feeding from ai slop to make more ai slop ı wonder when this nonsense comes to end
lechekaflan@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
The goddamn banchode running the biz, and greenlit this garbage moderation. Fuck AI.
ilinamorato@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 4d
It would be a lot easier and a lot cheaper, and provide the same results as an AI AI detector, if Google just flipped a digital coin every time a video was uploaded, and marked it as slop if it came up heads.
Forester@pawb.social · 5 pts · 4d
I have a revolutionary idea. Maybe they should crowdsource the reviews. Some sort of system where people can. I don't know show how much they like or dislike a video and the overwhelmingly disliked videos don't get promoted.
SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 4d
I have no words.
NathanRanch@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 4d
It's not like any Google docs script wasn't already fed into the AI. I think most AI models have to be overtrained, meaning we're never having any sort of privacy again. Gg
FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
That sucks.
I've been deliberately leaving mistakes in my videos here and there to protect against any of this automod junk.
Fizz@lemmy.nz · 1 pts · 2d
Nah thats correct kurzgesagt is slop
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 4d
MichaelTen@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
We need decentralized video platforms that have revenue sharing.
Krusty@quokk.au · 0 pts · 4d
I doubt that. Kur,jiizshit is slop.
thehatfox@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 4d
angelmountain@lemy.nl · -1 pts · 4d
It is possible to just not use YouTube
XLE@piefed.social · 38 pts · 4d
Difficult when YouTube has monopoly power over online video distribution.
eager_eagle@lemmy.world · 35 pts · 4d
no other platform even compares
Klear@piefed.world · -11 pts · 4d
to you
red_tomato@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 4d
Which other platform should Kurzgesagt and all their 25M subscribers move to instead?
half_built_pyramids@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 4d
1985 song by Prince, popularized by Skinhead O'Connor.
Klear@piefed.world · 10 pts · 4d
mildseason@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 4d
Wht not spin up their own peertube instance? The tech is there. Idk how it would work out cost wise. 25M subscribers is a lot but how many simultaneous viewers would there be? 1000 is manageable, would probably only need one server. Creators must take distribution into their own hands.
xthexder@l.sw0.com · 6 pts · 4d
25M subscribers means 25M people getting notified to come watch a video all at once. They could easily end up with a half million requests to buffer the new video all at once, and that would take down anything short of a full CDN to handle local geo-caching. It wouldn't be cheap to handle the burst loads of new releases.
mildseason@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 4d
That seems quite high. How many people would actually watch as soon as they got the notification? Do their videos usually get 500k views in the first hour?
It wouldn't have to be all or nothing at first. They could still post to Youtube to share the load. Start with 3 servers and see how they get on.
xthexder@l.sw0.com · 3 pts · 4d
Well, it really depends on how the notification is sent. Most people don't have push notifications set up on YouTube, so the spike wouldn't be crazy high there. Even a few 1000 people requesting a video at once could overwhelm a single server's bandwidth though.
I completely guessed at the 2% number if they were on another platform that sent out emails or push notifications. But I'm sure they'd also lose a huge chunk of those subscribers when moving platforms.
Zagorath@quokk.au · 1 pts · 4d
Well I could have said Nebula, except that Kurzgesagt was on Nebula, and chose to leave it because they wanted to leech off of other creators on that platform and everyone else said "lol no".
eleijeep@piefed.social · 0 pts · 4d
It's been seven hours and fifteen days,
Since you took your love away.
I go out every night and sleep all day.
Since you took your love away.
Since you been gone I can do whatever I want.
I can see whomever I choose.
I can eat my dinner in a fancy restaurant,
but nothing, I said nothing, can take away this blues.
eager_eagle@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 4d
to me and probably to over 2B people
smeenz@lemmy.nz · 2 pts · 4d
It's been seven hours and fifteen days
avidamoeba@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 4d
Nothing compares, to you
eleijeep@piefed.social · 1 pts · 4d
It's criminal that this comment is being downvoted. I guess the average age of lemmy must be under 40. Not that surprising I suppose.
Klear@piefed.world · 4 pts · 4d
...aaand someone downvoted yours too. People on lemmy really hate it when they don't get something.
Airfried@piefed.social · 12 pts · 4d
With Adblock and Sponsorblock equipped I'm far from the point of just not using it anymore despite Google's best efforts. It's not like there actually are alternatives. I mean I could give Nebula a try but I don't think it has the vast majority of the channels I watch.
markz@suppo.fi · 11 pts · 4d
Yeah, they should all just find a new job.
wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 4d
Tbh, for me there's just a couple of 'creators' I watch that do it for their careers, and they didn't start that way; the rest (50 or so subs) still do it 'right', even years later. YouTube started as a platform where everyone can create and share, and people who saw an opportunity for money helped turn it into the shit that it is today. When you (them) have multiple sponsorships per video, the production quality matching broadcast television, prominently show off your new car, house, jet... You (them) are the problem.
This needs a reset back to goofy video game machinimas, cyber police, hiiii my name is boxxy, arby n the chief; when people who hit record didn't want money. They were there to share with others.
RIotingPacifist@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 4d
I mostly use Nebula these days, but I've giving up on finding new content and I think all the creators I follow are on both because you're unlikely to get many new viewers on Nebula.
bss03@infosec.pub · 5 pts · 4d
PeerTube doesn't provide a revenue stream based on views. KZ and basically anyone that outputs "professional" animations has to have revenue if they are to pay their workers. Other revenue streams (e.g. Merch) can be distractions from the main task of producing video.
Nebula content is only available to subscribers, so the reach is tiny. Creators are free to mirror the content to non-Nebula sites, including YT, so I guess it could be an option.
Dropout is also subscriber only, and they are more jealous about making sure content appears there exclusively, at least for a bit. "One Backflip" and "Pissing Out Cancer" both were Dropout-only for at least a month before the performers could put the specials on other platforms.
Yes, it is possible. But, it's really hard to get off YT after building an audience there, and YT seems to have a much lower barrier to entry than other platforms, even PeerTube.
Dookieman12@piefed.social · 3 pts · 4d
Oh really? What other website do the YouTubers I want to watch upload to?
bss03@infosec.pub · 1 pts · 4d
Some of them are on Nebula. But, I don't know who you watch. I have a Nebula lifetime, but I also still have a lot of subscriptions on YT. So, it's unlikely to be a total replacement.
Killmeister@lemmus.org · -1 pts · 3d
Use AI channel blocker, but I guess most of you people use phones or tablets so you're fucked either way
Kaligalis@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 4d
That Kurzgesagt channel doesn't sound like a natural human voice to me either. YouTube might be right.
stevles@aussie.zone · 4 pts · 4d
join@lemmy.ml · -3 pts · 4d
Broken clock yada yada.
It may not be AI slob but it’s definitely neo liberal slob. Their pure science videos can be pretty good, but they can‘t help themselves producing videos once in a while presenting their center-right politics with the same gravitas and „objectivity“ as their science content.
uninvitedguest@piefed.ca · 5 pts · 4d
Which videos of theirs demonstrate a centre right lean?
join@lemmy.ml · 18 pts · 4d
their germany is ruined video: talking about an „unsolvable“ deficit without ever mentioning taxing capital.
And some climate video where they just spread Bill Gates fueled techno optimism as the solution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCuy1DaQzWI
avidamoeba@lemmy.ca · 9 pts · 4d
Oh yeah the unsolvable deficit had my jaw drop. They packaged run-of-the mill pro-1% noliberalism as objective fact. It was crazy.
jumping_redditor@sh.itjust.works · -1 pts · 4d
wealth taxes are nonstarters unless there is a robust way for the government to assess wealth that won't end up assuming somone with a few memecoins is worth millions or someone with a bad stock day is broke.
Hiro8811@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 4d
Yeah it stopped being a scientific channel and it turned into a channel presenting their opinions, even the one that are about science feel too opinionated.
itsjustachairmary@lemmy.world · -7 pts · 4d
Kurzgesagt is slop,
But not AI slop
ilinamorato@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 4d
What? I mean, I don't vibe with all the stuff they do, but they absolutely put a ton of effort into what they put out. They have multiple teams and everything, it's not just one guy in his basement.
FinalRemix@lemmy.world · 28 pts · 4d
You leave Technology Connections alone! Alec is a national treasure!
Agent641@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 4d
"Babe, come to bed!"
"Can't, technology connections just dropped a video on the refrigeration cycle!"
"That was months ago!"
"This is the prequel, it's different!"
ilinamorato@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 4d
He works out of his spare room. Totally different.
Also, I think you'd have a really hard time trying to convince anyone that he makes anything resembling slop. The guy's "no effort November" videos are more well-researched than some masters' theses.
itsjustachairmary@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 4d
It's neoliberal propaganda lol
ilinamorato@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
Whether it is or no, that doesn't make it slop.
itsjustachairmary@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 4d
Lol it literally does though
ilinamorato@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 4d
How about instead of insisting and asserting you actually add something to the conversation by explaining.
SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world · -4 pts · 4d
"Effort" is not an antonym of slop.
Anything new you try takes a ton of effort and the results will generally be pretty sloppy. It takes time and practice to make not-slop.
Rushing something to completion results in slop. It's hard to move fast! That doesn't make the final quality any better.
Using garbage tools and/or materials results in a garbage/slop output.
Doing something exclusively for the sake of profit leaves the result soulless. This one is a bit more controversial, but I 100% classify this as slop.
AI generated stuff is usually slop, and the sloppiest of slop, because it's often an amateur using garbage tools to rush something to completion for a quick buck.
Kurkesagt is, arguably, slop because they have slowly transitioned into trying to put out content as quickly as possible so that everyone working on it gets paid. Their whole thing is covering topics they themselves have not dedicate the time and effort to fully understand and master.
Also, slop is not a synonym for "unrecyclable trash". In my opinion, Kurkesagt is sloppy as hell! But the animations are fun, the voiceover is pleasant and the pop-sci is generally accurate enough to provide an interesting glimpse into whatever topic they're covering. They're still shoveling slop for profit though, sold out years ago and have a heavy bias towards explaining how capitalism, and their participation within it, is the most moral of choices one could make.
ilinamorato@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 4d
I think you're running with a very nonstandard definition of "slop" here.
SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
Possibly. Probably just an old definition though, hence why I tried to explain it.
Re-reading though I feel like I should clarify that the "nonstandard definition" is definitely a negative adjective, just not 'damning' in the same way it seems to be being interpreted here.
While I can't speak for @itsjustachairmary it seems there's at least 2 of us with that, or a similar, definition!
How would you explain the "standard" definition?
ilinamorato@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 4d
The definition I think most of the internet has settled on is "no-effort, no-value content, about which neither creator nor viewer cares that it exists."
It has to satisfy all four criteria to be slop (no effort, no value, creator doesn't care, viewer doesn't care), but it doesn't necessarily have to be AI; still, generally speaking, non-AI content is so much more expensive and time consuming that people are unlikely to put in the work (and companies are unlikely to put in the money) to have it made.
Human-made memes and jokes aren't slop, partially because even when they're low effort bad photoshops, they make people laugh (or at least think amused thoughts). At the very least, a human can feel gratified to have made a thing they wanted to make. Human-made ads aren't slop, because the company at least cares that it provides enough of a return to justify paying an employee for its creation.
SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
Honestly it seems like our definitions don't differ that much. Rephrasing my definition to your format: "little to no-value content, about which the creator cares little about, with the goal for mass appeal".
I don't think the amount of effort someone put into something changes it's value or quality. It feels like some kind of "blood sweat and tears are what's most important, that's why blood diamonds are the most valuable" shit y'know?
People can find value in anything, so I'm likely a bit more pervasive on what's "slop" quality.
I do emotionally agree that most human-made memes and jokes aren't slop but according to both of our definitions that doesn't really hold up. If it was just because the creator cared about their creation or the laugh was valuable that "unslops" a lot of, pretty terrible and objectively slop, slop. I think we're both missing something here, any ideas on what?
I disagree strongly about ads and see those of all shapes and provenance as the quintessential and original slop. The creators don't care about the ad, they're doing it for a paycheck with the benefactor only giving a shit about the "engagement" that comes from force feeding the ad to the masses.
ilinamorato@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 4d
No, I think the effort is key here, because the original pitch for calling AI output "slop" was, "if they don't care enough to make it, why would I care enough to read/look at/watch/listen to it?"
If it's anything churned out cynically, with only the desire to make money off of broad appeal, then we have to put Sherlock Holmes stories into that camp; certainly from "Hound of the Baskervilles" onward, if not all of it. Doyle cared about the work, and he put in plenty of time and effort to making it, and the readers definitely cared, but at the end of the day he was done with the character and just wanted to give the fans what they wanted so he could make a paycheck. We also have to put basically every movie in that camp, and pretty much every book written before the publishing industry took a nosedive in the late 90s. We have to put a ton of music into that category. Basically, anything other than indie street art.
As for ads never being art: I see what you're saying, but the "art-nouveau" style and movement began as advertising for theater performances in the 1890s. Similarly and more recently, there's a seminal and well-beloved Chobani ad from 2021 called "Dear Alice" that has defined and codified a lot of the "solarpunk" aesthetic. Somebody went through and erased all of the brand logos and set it to different music, and it's legitimately a beautiful little video about a touching parent/child relationship in a solarpunk future, but it was originally made as an ad.
Humans, especially artists, work for ad agencies; and sometimes they make art as a part of their paid work. It's not common by any means, but the fact that they were paid for it doesn't make it slop.
I think we need to partially disentangle "bad art" from "slop."
Slop is bad, but it doesn't just mean "bad." All slop is bad art, but we humans can try really hard and make bad or objectionable art with our own two hands just fine. "Birth of a Nation" is absolutely objectionable and deplorable, but it's not slop because D. W. Griffith truly believed in what he was making. "The Room" is objectively not a good movie, but Tommy Wiseau really cared about it. That doesn't mean many people are ever going to want to watch it unironically. "Friday" by Rebecca Black is really bad music, but it's not slop.
(Incidentally, in the same way, "slop" also doesn't mean soulless, anodyne, corporate, or misguided. Again, all slop is those things, but humans can do that on our own, too; even if we try real hard!)
Not all bad art is slop; that doesn't make it good art, it just makes it bad art by humans who tried hard (or at least tried a little bit) and did a bad job, or humans who were terrible people and that oozed out into their work.
Taldan@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 4d
You're going to have to provide examples that substantiate your opinion
As it stands, you just call them slop with no reason
SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 4d
By their own admission? "Lies to children" is just a variation of "slop for babies".
Or if you prefer pulling from Wikipedia's sources.
It's been years and I don't care to re-watch for the specific arguments but going through the list ones that I vaguely recall being not just "lies for children" but contained blatant, lack of better term, capitalist propaganda: Loneliness, Is meat bad for you, Overpopulation, marijuana, Geo engineering, whos to blame for climate change, UBI, banking explained.
I also recall a few especially bad ones on syria, the immigrant crisis, addiction and homelessness but those don't seem to be up anymore. You may be right that I am being overly harsh based on old history. Hopefully one they are trying to fix and not just whitewash.
Taldan@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
Any chance you want to explain your position? Might help with the downvotes if you do
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 4d
the animation might be low effort, but they are somewhat educational. AI videos are neither.
infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net · -8 pts · 4d
Are they so sure that Kurzgesagt isn't slop? Isn't it funded by the Gates Foundation? The charity arm of Bill "I'm totally not a creepy pedophile monopolist" Gate's PR initiative?
CatAssTrophy@safest.space · 11 pts · 4d
They got like 3% of their funding from the Gates Foundation, not exactly like they're fully beholden to them.
infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net · 0 pts · 4d
How much money was 3%?
sumsinj@lemmy.world · -8 pts · 4d
Nothing of value has been lost
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org · -14 pts · 4d
i mean this tell you everything that you need to know: as soon as the animation quality of a channel is good enough, it gets accused of being AI. what does this tell us about the quality of AI output?
chewypoops@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 4d
It sounds like your argument here is that AI animation is so legitimately great that it is on par with talented animators. Quite frankly, fuck that, no matter how visually polished AI animations may look, they are generally quite soulless and flat.
The real issue is that people are so reflexively anti-AI that they accuse anything that registers any doubt at all of legitimacy of being AI, even without evidence. This has hurt many legitimate artists who were forced to reveal more than they wanted to about their creative process just to prove to detractors that they didn't use AI. While hatred of AI "art" is very defensible, directing that hate any anyone you have a mere suspicion of is just making things worse for real artists.
And yeah, the visual clues that something is slop are getting more and more subtle, and that does pose a problem for our ability to quickly differentiate, but that absolutely does not mean than that the slop has equal value to human-created works. Anyone arguing otherwise is just telling the world that they are anti-Human. I which case, I recommend taking a look in the mirror and considering that maybe not all humans inferior to a GPU, just you.
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org · -7 pts · 4d
look i know that this gets a lot of hate but the current trajectory of "you need to prove your worth to the world to have a legitimate reason to exist" is just not sustainable. fuck all that "we support that artist", we should be supporting the person, whether they output art or not.
the current rage against AI is 90% driven by the idea that humans need to produce output sothat we can donate to them and give them money sothat they can live. and frankly, that's a dystopian idea in my eyes.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 5 pts · 4d
What an absolutely insane straw man
Soup@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 4d
Despite them being a little out of wack and a terrible communicator, they do have a point. AI’s main selling point is centered around how it can make everyone more productive as if we actually need even more productivity. We’re all more than productive enough, AI is giving us nothing but unemployment(as those left are told to work harder), more climate destabilization, and reduced quality of life for every single living thing nearby a data centre.
Their first comment was also just plain bad, not gunna defend that at all. They seem kinda loopy.
Soup@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 4d
You gotta work on your communication, I have zero clue what you’re trying to say. You start off heavily implying at AI is of a high quality, saying nothing else, and then go on about being pro-working class/pro person(I think?), but do it in a way that has holes in just the weirdest places.
Zozano@aussie.zone · 5 pts · 4d
That a lot of people are trying to imitate Kurzgesagt's signature style?
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org · -2 pts · 4d
yeah exactly.
geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml · -15 pts · 4d
They were probably right.
Reminder that Kurzgesagt is German government sponsored slop originally created by Bill Gates to spread capitalist propaganda (yes, unironically) https://youtu.be/ZRPcyWNfgxo
Tja@programming.dev · 10 pts · 4d
"Everything I don't agree with is slop"
geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 4d
Pseudoscience about capitalism going to magically fix climate change by doing nothing is slop.
cantstopthesignal@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 4d
I prefer slop to live in its own technical box of generative AI crap instead of broadening the word to the point it's just another meaningless pejorative like sus.
el_abuelo@programming.dev · 8 pts · 4d
You are aware of course that slop existed before generative AI and there are other things that are slop.
vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 4d
I know damned well that the term slop has been used since the 90s for food and at least the late 00s for other things. The term shovelware slop comes to mind. Note I don't remember the 90s I was a month old when it ended but I did watch a lot of 90s media so yeah.
geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml · 0 pts · 4d
Knowing how extremely unscientific Kurzgesagt is the accusation of them using AI to create slop scripts is most likely true.
Seriously can anyone the Dyson Sphere video and not come away thinking this is written by morons who have no idea what they're talking about?
But you say the word "science" a bunch of times with a nice looking, animation as if we have self-replicating robots already, and every Liberal will buy it.
echodot@feddit.uk · -2 pts · 4d
Can yo specifically point to some problematic content, because so far you've just complained
geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 4d
Literally read the comment
echodot@feddit.uk · 0 pts · 3d
Not really sure what that supposed to mean, as I am sure you are aware since dysons spheres do not exist I'm not quite sure how you've come to the conclusion they were wrong about them. You haven't actually pointed to anything specific you've just mentioned two general topics. I want links thank you very much you're the one that's making stupid accusations.
stickly@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
Ah yes capitalist propoganda like ...scrolls most popular... Countering coronavirus disinformation, explaining vaccines and the dangers of the antivax movement, the physical limits disproving the infinite growth lie of capitalism... Yeah, there's a lot of science fiction/fantasy topics but those are generally what gets views.
If they are pushing propoganda, they're pretty shit at it and should probably be spending their money on manosphere podcasts instead. Honestly you should be encouraging such inefficient efforts.
This is such a stellar example of the cold war tankie mindset. Anything a capitalist funds must be evil; anything from the west is a lie; it's my duty to counter everything coming out of their mouths; blah blah blah.
geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 4d
Don't forget pretending climate change will magically go away. And my favorite: German genocide denial.
Kurzgesagt Avoids Mentioning Gaza in Video Covering Gaza
stickly@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 4d
Ah yes, the evil liberal-capitalist climate solutions: shilling solar panels, agriculture tech, electrification, more efficient production of cement and steel
Nothing like the glorious socialist solutions of the proletariat: Chinese solar panels, Chinese agriculture tech, Chinese electrification, more efficient production of Chinese cement and steel
Turns out that every productivist ideology imagines their band-aid efficiency gains will hand wave what is essentially a growth and finite resource problem. So yeah I agree with you on some level, the free market won't magically save us any more than an AES state market. You're just mad because you're hearing it from a video sponsored by the bad team
geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml · 0 pts · 3d
You mean Liberal self replicating space robots vs Chinese solar panels.
Addressing the argument is a horror.
EvergreenGuru@lemmy.world · -24 pts · 4d
This makes sense. Kurzgesagt makes low quality content that’s poorly researched and has AI overdub. It’s a channel funded partly by a Bill Gates subsidiary, and has to do propaganda for them to meet its budget requirements. To say, “we established ourselves early” as an excuse is dumb. If we’re banning AI slop, then they should be banned.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 4d
I’ve seen this repeated a ton, so looked into it for myself, especially the “Bill Gates influence” angle.
I don’t buy it.
They aren’t perfect, but every Kurzgesagt video I’ve seen is above par for YouTube. And on the few topics I already knew something about, they seem to cover stuff well.
The criticism, on the other hand, was (to me) entirely unconvincing when investigated. It was mostly “I personally don’t like the agenda these facts point to.”
EDIT
And all that aside:
No one should be banned for the wrong reason.
If Kurzgesagt should be taken down, it shouldn’t be from a dysfunctional AI detection filter. It should be over whatever they actually did wrong.
soratoyuki@piefed.zip · 10 pts · 4d
Kurzgasagt makes a lot of cool science videos, but you can definitely predict when their 'actually we can science our way into only 2c rise in temperature and be alright' or 'Africa is only poor because of overpopulation' videos are going to end in a Gates Foundation disclosure.
RIotingPacifist@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 4d
I dislike how disenting opinions get downvoted on Lemmy/technology probably more than even on reddit.
Everything you said is factually correct.
I disagree that it means they should be banned but they take money from corporations to produce slopaganda, that's just true, and even beyond that their videos are well animated but the moment they touch a subject you actually know about you realize they are just internet researched videos that go a little more in depth that reading the Wikipedia page but it doesn't seem they actually understand what they are talking about, which is fine except that's not what they present themselves as (same with CPG Greg)
brucethemoose@lemmy.world · 25 pts · 4d
I think it’s reasonable to downvote.
This for instance:
May be technically true, but the implication is conspiratorial.
This:
Is an opinion I would strongly contest. “Slopaganda” doesn’t fit my impression either, especially with what they’ve disclosed about their production process.
And this:
Sounds like advocating for a ban under false pretenses, which I am vehemently against. That’s what ultimately crosses the downvote threshold for me.
…That came out as more accusatory/singled out than I intended. I don’t mean to pile on the comment.
Is the channel perfect? No. I think they’re citation-lite in the videos, have made mistakes and had bad takes. And it’s a little oversimplified for my tastes.
But on this:
I think a downvote is a fair tool, in this case.
And unlike Reddit (at least in by browser UI), Lemmy doesn’t hide the comment when it’s heavily downvoted, which I like. The comment still gets “fair” exposure like any other comment in this thread, but that doesn’t mean people have to like it.
Other Lemmy/Piefed UIs may handle this differently, though. Not sure about that.
ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
That almost makes it sound unfair, but the technology on Lemmy is doing exactly what each one of us tells it to do every time we cast a vote. It is, as far as I can tell, an exact representation of our own individual votes cast.
I could almost see your point on Reddit because of all the vote fuckery that goes on there, but here on Lemmy blaming a mass downvote on the tech and not on the users casting the votes is a misdirection of blame.
RIotingPacifist@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
Sorry I meant this specific Lemmy community wasn't sure how to flag it like r/technology but for lemmy
ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
Ah, I see your point. It is a particularly rough crowd. Try commenting how well a disfavored Linux distro works for you and watch the downvotes fly, lol.
c/Technology is the preferred nomenclature I think, or I guess the full community link if you want to distinguish it by instance (there are several).
chunes@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 4d
Yeah, I'm not surprised this channel got caught in the dragnet. It always seemed very close to AI slop before AI slop was a thing.