YouTube’s system for suppressing low-quality AI content mistakenly targeted Kurzgesagt, leaving the channel with its worst-performing upload since 2013.
is Youtube/Google speed running their death?
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.
you know the saying: move fast, break things. they are using AI disruptively, investors love that
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.
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.
Yeah, instead if you try to upload video on YouTube you actually have a prompt to generate more slop.
I don’t buy it.
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.
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.
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 forever
they’re pushing other platforms constantly. Kurzgesagt already does, heavily.
Do they? They used to be part-owners of Nebula but sold shares and bounced. What platform do they push now?
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.
What happened to nebula?
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.
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.
Even if ALL creators band together, IMO there’s basically nothing the creators can do.
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
Kurzgesagt already does, heavily.
where are they available besides youtube? on their website they only link to youtube, written social media, and instagram
I was mistaken, I think. Apparently they used to be involved with Nebula, but that’s no longer the case.
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.
Kurzgesagt is slop,
But not AI slop
the animation might be low effort, but they are somewhat educational, as in stem stuff. like scishow, and others.
Any chance you want to explain your position? Might help with the downvotes if you do
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.
“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.
I think you’re running with a very nonstandard definition of “slop” here.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
You’re going to have to provide examples that substantiate your opinion
As it stands, you just call them slop with no reason
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.
-
one guy in his basement
You leave Technology Connections alone! Alec is a national treasure!
“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!”
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.
It’s neoliberal propaganda lol
Whether it is or no, that doesn’t make it slop.
Lol it literally does though
How about instead of insisting and asserting you actually add something to the conversation by explaining.
AI slopt censoring AI slopt
Use AI channel blocker, but I guess most of you people use phones or tablets so you’re fucked either way
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?
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.
Which videos of theirs demonstrate a centre right lean?
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
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.
Oh yeah the unsolvable deficit had my jaw drop. They packaged run-of-the mill pro-1% noliberalism as objective fact. It was crazy.
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.
I don’t understand. I have more slop AI content than ever
I am super sceptical of anything made in the last year. Youtube will close to being worthless if the trend continues.
Last 15+ years for me
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.
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.
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.
I have no words.
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?
That a lot of people are trying to imitate Kurzgesagt’s signature style?
yeah exactly.
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.
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.
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.
What an absolutely insane straw man
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.
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.
that’s what happens when your AI slop detector is AI slop
We need decentralized video platforms that have revenue sharing.
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
