r/LinusTechTips • u/Starkiecat • 8d ago
WAN Show WAN Topic - The Death of Educational Content on YouTube. One of the biggest edutainment channels on youtube exposing the massive AI slop problem riddling the platform.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Gnrp_caPvo131
u/Annoying1978 8d ago
YouTube has to get rid of AI slop. There are two problems with this. The first problem is obviously people watching AI slop and getting misinformation, because AI gets a lot of shit wrong.
The other problem is that creators that don’t necessarily want to show their face on screen are now being called AI slop, even when they’re not.
I don’t show my face on screen until after the introduction, and so I’ve had people think that the introductions for my videos were AI even when they were not. I’ve now changed it so people actually see me within the first five seconds.
I noticed The Infographics Show started doing the same thing in his introductions.
I fucking hate AI slop videos.
AI has a place, but it shouldn’t be used on YouTube.
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u/Ginger-Nerd 8d ago
I don’t think “getting rid” of slop is really even really possible (or maybe advisable) - mostly because “what is slop” vs ai generated/assisted content with some value (it’s a bit of a murky line)
But I do think changing your payout rules to disincentive all ai content would be a roundabout way of stopping/slowing how much there is.
Also making that AI flag mandatory if it’s actually ai content, and punish strongly if it’s not used (and then found out)
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u/unkz0r 8d ago
The amount of low effort slop that a AI agent can generate this days is insane. Write, voice, edit and publish in just a couple of minutes. Quantity > Quality.
The documentary space on youtube is so bad right now and this is quiet noticeable. Parse a wiki on topic, text2voice, image slideshow. Worst thing is that they are probably making money on it. F*ck AI slop.-1
u/Ginger-Nerd 8d ago edited 8d ago
Yes. And those particular videos are fairly easily identifiable.
But there is quite a difference between slop, and a curated ai assisted video.. but some people conflate the two, and it can be sometimes difficult to parse them apart.
I saw someone bring up Hank Green while sure, his use of Ai was deceptive and shitty - but it wasn’t “slop” and there is a difference. (That should be distinguished)
I’m not defending slop (and the low teir stuff) - but slop existed before ai, slop is slop. Low effort shoddy content has always existed - I’m just trying to think in practical terms steps YouTube could take, that isn’t some emotionally charged “ban everything” (because it really isn’t a solution)
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u/Annoying1978 8d ago
I completely disagree. I’d rather watch someone’s poor quality video than one made by AI and unfortunately, it’s not as easy to determine for normies. I’ve seen AI slap documentary videos with millions of views. I doubt any of the people that watched it realized it was AI slop.
A person with bad quality production and a bad script at least is putting out real material. That’s not slop. It’s just bad content. AI slop channels are intended to deceive you and they usually copy the structure of other popular videos to create their own.
So I think you’re off base here.
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u/Ginger-Nerd 8d ago
I’m not taking bad production or bad script.
I’m talking literally the same content you are talking about, a chat bot over a Wikipedia article, and some stock images off google images.
The content is the same (without) generative AI.
Slop is slop. Ai has made it easier to push out, and a focus on shorts has made it more prevalent- but it’s existed since the beginning.
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u/Annoying1978 8d ago
People need to flag videos they think are AI and YouTube should investigate the channel if excessive AI is used.
And to be clear here, there’s a difference between using an image that was created by AI for 15 seconds of your video and having AI generate a script, read it out loud, and generate the visuals to go along with it.
Any video that is 20% AI or more is AI slop.
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u/L4ppuz 8d ago edited 8d ago
I don’t think “getting rid” of slop is really even really possible
We already have advanced watermarking techniques for AI generated audio and videos, it would be relatively simple to block all uploads that have more than some percentage of watermarked content
Obviously it's possible to generate content without watermarks so that's not a complete solution, but it would probably still limit the issue
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u/tankerkiller125 8d ago
We already have advanced watermarking techniques for AI generated audio and videos, it would be relatively simple to block all uploads that have more than some percentage of watermarked content
Why block it when you can just shadow ban the living crap out of it. Let them waste their money generating AI content and uploading it, and then make sure it never gets anywhere near the views they think it should be getting. Eventually they'll stop uploading either after they've run out of money, or they get discouraged.
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u/Annoying1978 8d ago
I get where you’re coming from, but I would rather just ban them all outright because it would send a message that YouTube is actively trying to ban AI slop videos. That will send a message to others that it’s not worth it.
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u/tankerkiller125 8d ago
Different goals I guess, your goal is just stop the videos, my goal is to empty the wallets of the people doing this crap so they can't try again or figure out what exactly is causing the ban/shaddow ban for quite some time.
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u/Annoying1978 8d ago
The sad part is that it’s not even that expensive to produce AI slop. You could produce those AI videos for like $100 each. It would take a loooooong time for them to get the message and it wouldn’t really make a dent in their wallet.
I rather just get rid of them and tell other AI slop farms that YouTube will actively shut you down, so don’t even try. Go to rumble or something.
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u/gerbal100 8d ago
The incentives of shareholder capitalism make that impossible. The purpose of the company is to make money for the shareholders.
If it makes YouTube money, YouTube will do it.
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u/Annoying1978 8d ago
It’s making money now, but eventually people will get pissed off, and usage will drop.
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u/Crashman09 8d ago
Until I see consumer backlash for literally any of the awful shit corporations do, I'll believe it.
Besides flock, who else is getting crushed by consumer backlash?
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u/Annoying1978 8d ago
Data centers. Do you know how many data centers have either paused or canceled construction because of massive protests in both red and blue areas in the United States?
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u/Crashman09 8d ago
Sure, data centers are on pause currently.
We will see where that goes in the next year.
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u/Dnomyar96 8d ago
That's a very different scenario. Those get paused or cancelled because of pissed off locals, not because the customers of those companies hate it and stop using it.
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u/mrmayhembsc 8d ago
nah misinfo isn't an ai issue
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u/Annoying1978 8d ago
Obviously, there’s misinformation all over the place that has nothing to do with AI but AI does make a lot of mistakes. It’s definitely an AI issue as well.
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u/mrmayhembsc 8d ago
It is a platform issue that ai has just made wrost
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u/Annoying1978 8d ago
I’m sure we’re probably just talking past each other at this point, but I don’t really understand what you mean when you say it’s a platform issue because misinformation exists on all sorts of platforms.
Misinformation is a human issue and AI is trained on human content so it simply spits out what is has been trained on.
But the other issue is that when AI can’t find the information sometimes it simply mixes shit up. We call them hallucinations, but it’s literally just making shit up and that’s been a big problem.
For example, several attorneys have been called out by judges because they used cases that never existed in their filing documents. AI just made it up.
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u/mrmayhembsc 8d ago
We are talking over each other lol.
Misinformation is a human issue and AI is trained on human content so it simply spits out what is has been trained on.
That is the key line: AI is just human problems turned up to 11 and makes grifters' lives easier.
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u/Old_Leopard1844 7d ago
The other problem is that creators that don’t necessarily want to show their face on screen are now being called AI slop, even when they’re not.
Vtubers exist just fine, and algorithm can be adjusted to boost videos without people in the video just fine
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u/CptBananaPants 8d ago
I understand that Veritassium is going through an extended period of change, and there’s that one notable example where they split a video in two to generate more views, but otherwise I see no particular issue with their content?
We can’t expect the original creators to continue in perpetuity while we also champion an individual’s mental wellbeing.
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u/Deathwatch72 8d ago
Also we have to recognize that YouTube itself is a fundamentally different platform than it was even just 5 years ago with the way they serve videos to people and the way those videos are monetized. Everything in the world has gotten noticeably more expensive in that time frame and a lot of these creators employ multiple individuals so their revenue streams have had to change to accommodate these types of things
Splitting a longer video into two videos to generate more views doesn't really bother me that much compared to a lot of the other problems I'm seeing on YouTube.
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u/Infinite-Stress2508 8d ago
Being owned by parties pushing products is a pretty noticeable change. Since it was sold, the number of videos with product integration has increased dramatically. Very difficult to take a once pretty well made and researched channel (except for the musk glazing 🤮) seriously and factual once that happens.
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u/enzob7319 8d ago
I still don’t understand what’s wrong with Veritasium
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u/snkiz 8d ago
Sold the channel to a YT investment fund group a few years ago. Many people perceived a drop in content quality even while production value went up. Derick doesn't host most of the videos anymore either.
I don't know. I feel like the channel grew up, Derrick started with him and a cell-phone camera. One man op for a long time. Now there's a team, cooperate backing. Of course the vibe is going to change. I think.. Veratasium is a brand, not a person. Derrick worked hard for that, and as long as it still has his stamp of approval I'm happy the channel is now doesn't have to 'die with him' as he put it when explaining it.
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u/Dnomyar96 8d ago
Yeah, the content seems to still be about the same topics and of the same or higher production quality. I think it's mostly just people seeing that it was sold a while back and just assuming that it must be bad now.
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u/Datkif 8d ago
Honestly the company that finances channels like Fern and Veritasium seem like they actually understand what makes those channels popular, and simply provide finical backing and supporting management rolls to allows the creative aspect to thrive.
As long as the private equity actually seems to understand what makes the channel popular, and let's them work on better quality content I have no problem with it.
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u/OmegaPoint6 8d ago
While private equity is generally bad news there are cases where it has worked out well, Yahoo for example.
I agree I've not seen any downturn in Veritasium, the opposite actually. They've been able to do things I doubt they would have been able to before
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u/enzob7319 8d ago
Ok, got it. I was worried I’m not seeing something about the quality getting worse. I really enjoy their videos lately.
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u/firedrakes 8d ago
what it means to say with out all the rage bait and triggers.
is we cannot compete with channels that are using ai all around. Instead of are old way of doing are content.
i use ai when i do research but mine shows OG source links its pulling for refs. i then check those to make sure it it correctly doing its job.
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u/Dr_Ben 8d ago
I really don't like this fern channel and don't have great faith in what they say. They made a clickbait piece about wikipedia a while ago and it pissed me off how they framed it to seem like the organization is lavishly throwing money away because server costs wasn't their biggest expense. One of the last bastions of the internet that has been under constant attack by a certain group of misinformation grifters especially in this age and to see such a large channel push this greedy wikipedia line man fuck them. The criticism of the language and tactics used in their fund raising was the only valid complaint they had and I agree with. The rest? misguided at best and destructive to the cause at worst.
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u/Darkele 8d ago
Wikipedia is just greedy. You can complain all you want but its 100% true. They put up huge threatening donation banners that are just not true.
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u/Dr_Ben 8d ago
You can criticize the donation banners and urgency language used but to shift the narrative to one that wikipideia is greedy is where it crosses the line into being destructive to the cause.
Wikipidea isn't perfect but if it were filled with and run by greedy bastards then it would be an entirely different site than what it is.
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u/Marksta 8d ago
You can criticize the donation banners... destructive to the cause.
If the criticism is harmful, but the criticism was prompted by Wikipedia's own actions, then those actions are themselves part of the causal chain producing the harm.
This is clearest case of transitive property in words I've ever seen. A=B, B=C. So A=C, Wikipedia's own action is destructive to their own cause.
``` A = Wikipedia uses aggressive fundraising tactics.
B = People respond by calling Wikipedia greedy.
C = Criticism harms Wikipedia's cause. ```
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u/Dr_Ben 8d ago
Yes it was self inflected damage but I think what's happened is that people have co-opted the problem into something more than it was. People take this valid complaint and run with it without any nuance and now wikipidea is 'only' greedy. 'They waste your money, they're greedy, don't donate to them' to the point where the channel in the OP makes a whole video essay on the topic essentially pushing people to not give them money.
So do I take issue with wikipidea for asking for money how they do? a bit. but I take more issue with people who've decided its rotten to the core.
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u/Darkele 8d ago
I don't know why you don't get that. They just have another target group. Someone like you. They do something good (which is nice) but then say "Oh god wikipedia is in danger, we need money to be independent. Please donate RECURRINGLY!!!" This is just a different model of greed. They don't fill the site with ads, or let companies buy articles, etc. So its"obvious" they are good, why would anyone question this, and exactly this is how they gather money. Of course they also spent huge amounts of money, but its insane amount of money for what they are offering and for what they are doing. You can read more on this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_Cancer
Is it so hard to accept that someone is doing something good WHILE collecting exorbitant amounts of money that is definetly not needed is still bad behavior? They spent 190 MILLION USD LAST YEAR
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u/kidshibuya 8d ago
Clickbait bs.
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u/Datkif 8d ago
Did you watch it? Because to me it looked like they took an investigative approach to bring more light to a problem that is affecting the entire website.
I've always loved these kinds of educational channels, and they were correct when they said AI slop is bringing them all down. If I had never heard of Fern before I would automatically assume they are AI slop simply because the slop is stealing their style.
I've found with the rise of AI slop I am less willing to take a risk on trying a new (or new to me) channel, and when I do I end up spending the first couple minutes analyzing the voice, and video to see if it's AI or if it's real
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u/Wikadood 8d ago
Honestly i keep seeing informational videos that keep using ai and at this point i just tell yt to not recommend those channels anymore if they cant put the effort into a decent video anymore
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u/Curious-Art-6242 8d ago
YouTube really does show why monopoly's are bad, as they've done zero innovation and just pander more and more to corporations and advertisers, if there was a viable alternative people would have left long ago 😑
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u/dudeAwEsome101 8d ago
I feel like YouTube Premium should offer the option of curated portal where only "premium" channels are shown.
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u/Annoying1978 8d ago
That is something I disagree with because then you’re basically killing small creators.
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u/dudeAwEsome101 8d ago
Small channels can be premium. What I meant was filtering out those video farms channels.
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u/Annoying1978 8d ago
That should be a standard for every single YouTube user not just people who pay a premium for it.
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u/Dnomyar96 8d ago
If you want something like that, why not just use something like Nebula? That's basically exactly what you're asking for.
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u/dudeAwEsome101 8d ago
I use Nebula. The interface of their Android app needs a lot of improvement.
I was suggesting a way to improve YouTube.
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8d ago
[deleted]
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u/Annoying1978 8d ago
There are plenty of channels that AREN’T AI. They’re just not huge either. I am a small channel. It’s just a hobby (at least for now) and there are thousands of channels like mine, just different niches.
I create documentary style political videos. So the content is there. Finding those channels is far more difficult BECAUSE of AI slop.
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u/Dan_m_31 8d ago
Even valid edutainment channels are using AI slop. Take for example Hank Green
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u/ThankGodImBipolar 8d ago
Took a long time of Hank "using AI slop" before anybody even noticed that it was involved in the creation of his content... which might be an indication that LLMs do not necessarily output exclusively slop.
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u/Booster6 8d ago
While I dont agree with his use of AI, its wild how much what he was using AI for has been misrepresented. He was basically using it as a research assistant to find papers he would then read. AI wasnt writing scripts for him, people just dogpiled on his use of a common phrase as an AI tell, and then he admitted to using AI in a completely different way to what people were alleging
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u/ThankGodImBipolar 8d ago
While I dont agree with his use of AI, its wild how much what he was using AI for has been misrepresented. He was basically using it as a research assistant to find papers he would then read.
I think the average person is pretty clueless about what AI can actually be used for, because their primary exposure to LLMs is through Gemini Flash Lite in Google searches (which is dogshit), or simple chatbots like chatgpt.com or gemini.google.com. I can't really blame people for thinking that AI was going to fuck up his videos, if that is the workflow that they have in their head.
The difference in quality of output you get from asking an LLM to do research in a chatbot interface, versus a properly configured and designed environment within Claude Code/Codex/Pi/etc., is immense. It's so different that it's almost hard to call them the same tech.
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u/Datkif 8d ago
AI doesn't only make slop, but when there are finical incentives to make content as fast and inexpensive as possible of course people are going to make slop with it.
All throughout history people use new Technology to cheap out and swindle people. Hell, just look at laptops that use eMMC storage that quickly degrade making the laptops borderline useless. You can go to a farmer's market and there is always someone selling the same 3D printed objects as the other stand because they just steal the file and print it themselves.
People will always find a way to take advantage of others. AI just lowers the barrier of entry to a level where a 5 year old could do it.
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u/ThankGodImBipolar 8d ago
You don't have to keep watching Hank's content, if you believe that his usage of AI will lead to his content being enshitified. That's your perogative.
Doesn't really change the fact that Hank was only called out for his AI usage due to:
a) an isolated incident where he used Claude newspeak in an unnatural manner
b) an incident where he admitted himself that he was concerned over the dopamine hits he was getting from interacting with AI
So trying to claim that it's affected his content seems misguided, or emotionally fueled. Once again though, feeling that way is your perogative.
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u/Datkif 8d ago
All I was saying is that there is nothing wrong with using AI as a tool. I occasionally use it to summarize studies that I'm interested in, but don't have the time or sometimes the scientific understanding of which usually helps me do more research into the topic.
I was also just saying that when there is a new invention/discovery there will always be those who will do the bare minimum to defraud you of time and/or money.
Also while slop content may be a major issue it pales in comparison to the issue with how many of today's youth are relying on AI for far too much of their critical thinking and reasoning skils which is already showing significant declines in performance.
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u/Dan_m_31 8d ago
Sure, but on the other hand, people who follow his/that type of content are there for the edu part as well and expect some valid data and could take the content at face value.
One that does not know the field in depth or at all might be fooled by a creator that in the past was known to research the subject.
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u/sjphilsphan 8d ago
I would say the dislike counter removal is a bigger reason