With so much AI slop on YouTube, it's no longer safe to give videos the benefit of the doubt. Always check

[highplainsdem]

to see if they're AI or likely to be AI.

We've had at least three DUers tricked by AI slop videos today. The first slop video I saw came from a channel posting only AI slop videos about earthquakes (only 5 as of this morning, but the channel had just started posting them on the 1st of July). Then another DUer was tricked by an AI slop channel posting nothing but fake Bill Clinton statements, using an AI clone of his voice - garbage that AI user had written for that fraud. 60 such videos since April 1. Then a third DUer was tricked by AI slop supposedly giving inside information from the Vatican - 232 videos about that since January 22.

ALWAYS, to avoid AI slop, check the date a video was uploaded. If it's more than a few years old, you don't have to worry that it was generated with AI and probably filled with AI errors that no one bothered to catch, if not deliberate fraud.

But if it was posted in the last few years, more checking is necessary.

GO TO THE YOUTUBE CHANNEL it's from and look at the other videos. If it's a recent video and the channel is posting videos nearly every day and sometimes multiple times a day, the odds are it's AI slop, UNLESS it's from a real news organization with a large staff.

Check the information in the channel profile and individual video descriptions. Sometimes AI users admit they're using AI, but not all do.

Check the YouTube comments on videos, because you'll often find comments saying that AI slop videos are AI.

If there is ANY use of AI art, even for the thumbnail (top image), the odds are that isn't the only such use of AI. I hope you can recognize typical AI art, which often has a finish I've sometimes seen described as looking like plastic.

If the video includes images or short video snippets that don't go with the narration, it was likely patched together by AI.

If a series of videos on the same theme have different voices narrating different videos, the odds are it's AI narration.

There is an incredible amount of AI slop on YouTube already, some of it produced by content farms or individuals that are likely to have set up other YouTube channels on different subjects, all of them just clickbait.

See this thread in Musicians, the OP and replies, for the sort of things you might run into with AI slop: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10358002

It's an AI slop swamp out there. But if you do some checking before copying videos to DU, you can help keep it from spreading here.

[Arthur_Frain]

1. Too much to hope for

But there should be an “AI Slop” channel that I can trash.

[highplainsdem]

2. On YouTube, you mean? They could do a much better job labeling AI, and letting people block it, but

they don't because they make money off that garbage.

Zuckerberg is encouraging AI slop on Facebook and Instagram for the same reason.

[Arthur_Frain]

10. No, here on DU

Used to be a “videos” tab here on DU when I first got here. Even then it was on its way out, and self policing here was non existent, as the web became more video driven.

Now the web is AI video driven. Nobody here seems interested in self policing”censoring”, everybody just wants views and clicks.

And so we’ll yell back and forth about “AI slop”.while it becomes the main posting medium here.

[moondust]

3. Thank you for the tips!

Bookmarked!

[Crunchy Frog]

4. And YouTube keeps asking me to get a paid membership. Not a chance.

I try to keep my video viewing to channels that I'm subscribed to or have been following long term and know are trustworthy. There's lots of stuff that just pops up though, and usually has clickbaity titles.

[canetoad]

5. As well as reading the blurb about the video

Which SHOULD say at the bottom if it's fully or party AI created, it can be useful to visit the channel home page and scan what is on offer.

For example - the recent post by OAITW about Pope Leo from the channel Tales of Peace - this is their video page:
https://www.youtube.com/@TalesofPeace-s9t

A quick glance should set your spidey senses tingling. This is obviously not genuine or truthful.

[Aussie105]

6. I've never taken anything on the internet, YouTube or Tik Tok seriously.

And I'm not about to do so now.

DU is the only place that should be taken seriously - as long as you can sort the wheat from the chaff.

[orthoclad]

7. I'd like to see ALL media label AI

That would make it easier to track down the stolen property.

[orthoclad]

8. Googletube is just another brick in the wall

of the googly empire. I've been avoiding it for years. Damn straight gaggle is spying on the users, for a variety of reasons, mainly commercial, but increasingly political.

Big Google Is Watching! With the processing power of its data surveillance farms, Federal cases will be built against protestors by linking statements in gmail and gchat to watching certain (possibly bait) videos on the tube.

Plus a host of other reasons to avoid videos which I sum up as "life is too short for utube". I can scan a block of text in seconds for a gist rather than waste half an hour listening to some geek blather about what he's going to show you in just a minute but first these ads... Complete with garish yellow circles lines and arrows (thank you Arlo)

In some very rare cases it's worth watching video.

[DallasNE]

11. The AI Slop

Is what makes me ask: what is so wonderful about AI? Is it really ready for prime time? I have my doubts about this and the security aspects of AI, as well as whether it can be trusted with sensitive data. As a retired IT mainframe computer programmer, I first came in contact with subsets of AI in the mid-1990s, and it has taken this long (30 years) to move forward from those early efforts.

[C Moon]

12. FaceBook "Reels" is the worst for AI videos--especially the animal ones. I would guess 90% are AI.

[highplainsdem]

17. I've seen a lot of social media posts from animal lovers who are disgusted because AI-using nitwits

amusing themselves generating fake animal videos have destroyed what used to be one of the best things about the internet. Now it's all but impossible to enjoy an animal video without wondering if it will turn out to be some trick from some AI-using creep who loves fooling people but probably doesn't really love animals.

I noticed already a couple of years ago that Caturday posts on social media platforms were being flooded with AI slop.

Shame there isn't a way to make sure the AI-slop producers (none of whom are real artists) can be deprogrammed from their addictions to AI slop by limiting them to seeing nothing but AI slop for a while. That might finally make even the most AI-addled realize how horrible AI slop is.

[C Moon]

19. It's so dumb. Why even post a fake animal video? I guess they do it to get hits.

[highplainsdem]

21. Probably most of them do it to get hits. Some probably do it because they enjoy tricking people. Some

probably think whatever they have AI generate for them is so wonderful it has to be seen and admired.

None of them care how much damage they're doing to people's enjoyment of animal videos. Or to our information ecosystem and our understanding of what animals really look and act like.

I've never forgotten OpenAI CEO Sam Altman showing off their new video generator, Sora, a couple of years ago, babbling about what people could create with AI, including nature documentaries. One of the short video clips he showed off was of ants in a tunnel.

The ants had 4 legs.

[C Moon]

22. Wow! That's terrible.

[LeftInTX]

18. I agree! How many fake tornados are there?

And last week, I was hit with a rash of cleaning videos..LOL

Everyone of them required salt. Just mix salt, baking soda, vinegar, peroxide and dawn in a bowl. Throw it on your dirty pan. Miraculously, just throwing it on a pan melts all grease and caked on stains in seconds without scrubbing. (Sorta like those brillo ads from the 60's, where they showed a brillo pad crossing a pan and walla - magic) The only reason I watched them was because I couldn't believe how dumb they we were. I wanted to comment, but refrained because I didn't want to be hit with more of them. (I believe the page is "Clever Life Hacks".)

Last year, I was constantly hit with Turkish produced videos that showed world leaders all line dancing together..LOL

OTOH, there are some decent quick exercise videos on reels and I get Armenian news, music and culture that way. (Not AI)

And I can't resist watching Anthony Fuentes funny reactions to videos "Mira....what in the soap opera wedding are you doing?" "Mira, why is your face so pale? Have you ever been outside?" I think he's reacting to some AI videos, some real videos etc. In everyone of them, someone is doing something stupid or weird.

So like a dumbie, I kill time on reels...

[C Moon]

20. Oh yeah! The fake tornado videos! Grrrr.

[GusBob]

13. Gonna say thanks and something not so nice

I’m tired of folks falling for and reccing things that are not true.

Seems like you can’t spell “duped” without DU

Trumps social media lies help him get elected

Stupid folks fall for social media lies

There is a simple truth to the reason this is happening, but it can’t be said as one should not blame the victim

[Ms. Toad]

14. The ones I've seen posting AI slop know it

And don't seem to care. (I'm other words, I don't think they are being tricked.)

[highplainsdem]

15. There are some AI slop fans here, and it's disappointing that anyone who's supposed to be liberal would

give a thumbs-up to the AI bros and their IP theft that way. And when they recommend AI slop videos with errors, they're showing a lack of concern for other DUers.

[Melon]

16. Just stop posting video without a summary

People posting 40 minute videos with zero description. What watches these?