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 63bn 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.

The findings are a snapshot of a rapidly expanding industry that is saturating big social media platforms – from X to Meta to YouTube – and defining a new era of content: decontextualised, addictive and international.

  • morto@piefed.social
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    8 hours ago

    and according to fediverse observer, lemmy has been losing a lot of users…

    on the other hand, according to statista, reddit has been gaining users and now has more than when the lemmy exodus happened

    the truth is that what we did didn’t affect them as much as we expected, and most people don’t care as well :(

    but well, let’s keep the flame alive and not lose hope

    • WhatTheDuck@piefed.social
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      1 hour ago

      I highly doubt Reddit is actually gaining that many new users, but the number of accounts created? Sure.

      Reddit never has enough bots for their AI slop machine. They create more bot accounts to “boost engagement” via posts and comments.

    • MBech@feddit.dk
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      7 hours ago

      Honestly, I wouldn’t really want everyone on Reddit to come here. With the risk of sounding like some immigrant hating dickbag, they just bring their dumb takes and bot farms with them. What makes Lemmy good right now, is that it’s so small and intimate.

      • morto@piefed.social
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        7 hours ago

        At least with lemmy we can make our server and defederate with the bigger ones if things get bad like that

    • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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      8 hours ago

      the truth is that what we did didn’t affect them as much as we expected, and most people don’t care as well :(

      Most people don’t really care about anything. They won’t put up with a little inconvenience. Worse than toddlers.

      • sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz
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        2 hours ago

        That’s what I was thinking too. I browse r/all once in a while just to see what’s going on, and both the posts and comment sections are AI cesspools