Chuck DarwinDec 27

More than 20% of the videos that YouTube’s algorithm shows to new users are “AI slop”
– low-quality AI-generated content designed to farm views, research has found.

The video-editing company Kapwing surveyed 15,000 of the world’s most popular YouTube channels
– the top 100 in every country
– and found that 278 of them contain only AI slop.

Together, these AI slop channels have amassed more than 63 billion views and 221 million subscribers,
-- generating about $117m (£90m) in revenue each year, according to estimates.

The researchers also made a new YouTube account and found that 104 of the first 500 videos recommended to its feed were AI slop.

One-third of the 500 videos were “#brainrot”, a category that includes AI slop and other low-quality content made to monetise attention.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/dec/27/more-than-20-of-videos-shown-to-new-youtube-users-are-ai-slop-study-finds?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

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

Low-quality AI-generated content is now saturating social media – and generating about $117m a year, data shows

The Guardian
Show threadzka

@cdarwin From the article --

> A YouTube spokesperson said: “Generative AI is a tool, and like any tool it can be used to make both high- and low-quality content.

Serious question: is there any "high-quality" AI-generated content worth viewing, anywhere?

From my understanding of how the "A.I." algorithms work, they should only be capable of generating bland averages of whatever dataset they were trained on.

Dec 28 at 12:24pmWeb