Low-quality AI-generated content is now saturating social media – and generating about $117m a year, data shows

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.

  • nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    35·
    17 hours ago

    shit the internet has become a toilet and I have to go outside and look around and talk to people but everyone’s on the internet now I’m fucked

    • sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      20·
      11 hours ago

      Unironically, a lot of cultural sociologists I follow on bluesky/mastadon are saying that being offline and meeting people through niche hobby spaces and your existing extended social circles is starting to see an uptick, with a lot of younger people seeing posting on major social media or dating apps as “cringe”. You’re at the forefront of what’s cool, nutsack.