AI 'slop' suits YouTube's aims, but what about the rest of us?

AI-generated video clips could crowd out human-made content

- Parmy Olson

The prevailing wisdom is that AI-generated content, or "slop" as it's colloquially known, should make our skin crawl. AI models tend to generate uncanny faces, mangled hands, and fantastical scenarios. For example, a YouTube Short video shows a baby that finds itself being shimmied up a baggage loader onto a jumbo jet, before donning an aviation headset and flying the plane. It has racked up more than 103 million views.

So too have other AI-generated videos, which are starting to dominate the platform in much the same way they have proliferated across Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram. Several of YouTube's most popular channels now feature AI-generated content heavily.

I'd originally thought this would be a problem for YouTube as it grappled with what looked like a new form of spam, but the general lack of complaint from advertisers, coupled with the gangbusters growth of AI content and appreciative comments from viewers, changed my view. It seems people are happy to gorge on slop, and that's not a problem for Alphabet's most valuable asset after Google Search.

Quite the opposite.

Earlier this month, YouTube—which could surpass The Walt Disney Company this year as the world's largest media company by revenue—updated its policies to strike a balance, allowing AI-generated videos to flourish on its platform without treating them as spam.