The End of the Era of AI Slop
If you’ve spent any time on YouTube recently, you’ve probably noticed the growing presence of what many now refer to as “AI slop.” This is cheap, mass-produced content that is created using new generative AI tools. Even worse, this new type of AI-generated content typically repurposes existing video or photo content, so everything becomes very repetitive and very inauthentic.
Understandably, YouTube is now looking to cut down on this type of content on its platform. AI slop creates a terrible user experience, and YouTube has likely noticed a decline in views or engagement, as users go elsewhere for authentic video content. So, on July 15, the social media giant came out with an update for its YouTube monetization program. Simply put: if you still want your YouTube videos to be monetized, then you need to cut back on the AI slop.
How to recognize AI slop
Admittedly, it can be hard to recognize AI slop. Sometimes, it’s an AI voice track overlaid on photos, video clips, or other repurposed content. Other times, it’s fake AI videos about news events that never took place, or really low-quality music content for AI music channels. Overall, it’s just cheap, mass-produced content that’s designed to accumulate clicks, views, and shares, all by doing very little work. The idea is to use a simple AI prompt to generate content that used to take hours to create, hone, and perfect.
That being said, some of this AI-generated content can actually be quite creative. For example, everyone has been talking about The Velvet Sundown. People honestly couldn’t figure out if this was a real rock band, or one that was created with the help of AI. The band was racking up hundreds of thousands of listens on Spotify, and that led to a proliferation of videos about the band on YouTube.
As you might have guessed, the band was completely fake. The images of the band were all generated using AI. All of the music for the band was created using AI. And even the “spokesperson” for the band turned out to be fake.
Of course, there were some tell-tale signs that AI was at work here. For example, some music enthusiasts pointed out in YouTube videos that the guitars being used by the band didn’t look real. Others pointed out that the images of the band looked a bit “off.” And still others pointed out that everything - from the name of the band, to the titles of the songs, to the album artwork, to the music itself - all seemed too derivative. This is exactly what one expects from AI content.
Should YouTube crack down on AI content?
Many people have mixed feelings about this new AI content being created. Obviously, YouTube feels that it’s ruining the overall social media experience. And that’s what most people believe. It’s called “AI slop” for a reason.
But, as pointed out above, there’s also some really creative AI content being generated. And some of it is arguably better than what humans can create. So it’s unlikely that the debate over AI content will go away anytime soon. That means YouTube is going to be facing some tough decisions about what types of content it will monetize, and what types of content it won’t.