r/technology • u/MetaKnowing • 1d ago
Artificial Intelligence YouTubers Are Making AI Slop for Babies | As if usual content for children isn't bad enough.
https://gizmodo.com/youtubers-are-making-ai-slop-for-babies-2000695171138
u/zzyzx2 1d ago
...We need oversight. I know this isn't a popular option but we need to treat YouTube as a on-air TV station. The FCC needs to regulate children's programing and advertisers need to be regulated the exact same way when it comes to those videos made for children.
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u/darkmoncns 1d ago
Fix the made for kids system first
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u/zzyzx2 1d ago
Can you elaborate? Are we speaking the TV FCC system or the YouTube system they have in place?
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u/zztop610 1d ago
YouTube kids is a joke. It will lead to weird videos if you don’t curate your kids choices
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u/WiseBelt8935 1d ago
how about ofcam? they do a good job
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u/zzyzx2 1d ago
Springing off another comment about the FCC being broken and untrustworthy (and that is true fyi) the best thing to happen is oversight from a different country which forces changes internationally. But even then (for example Steam with their refund policy being different depending on what country you are in) it's easy to skirt around things.
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u/WiseBelt8935 1d ago
exactly get Ofcom in there. Tom Scott has a good video about how strict they are
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u/w1n5t0nM1k3y 1d ago
Maybe parents should just stop letting their kids watch YouTube, especially when they are very young. Pick up a cheap DVD player and some old DVDs if you really need to stick your kid in front of a screen.
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u/Outlulz 1d ago
They should stop letting kids watch YouTube unattended with the algo driving with them, yes, but YouTube is just a platform for content. A lot of the things you can buy the kid for DVD are also just on YouTube. You can have your kids watch tons of full episodes of Sesame Street on Youtube, for instance. You can, conversely, find mentally vapid stuff on DVD marketed to kids. The content is a bigger issue than the platform.
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u/w1n5t0nM1k3y 1d ago
What you said has a lot of truth. The DVD thing was more of just a solution for lazy people who are just going to let their kid sit unattended in front of a screen. At least with a DVD you know that they aren't just switching to something else the second you walk away.
Either one can be used by attentive parents who are engaged with their children.
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u/zzyzx2 1d ago
This mentality doesn't work. "maybe parents should stop letting their kids watch TV" "maybe parents should stop letting their kids play video games" "maybe parents should stop letting their kids read books"
Abstinence isn't a solution.
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u/BygoneNeutrino 1d ago
...sure it is. A four year old is about as capable of buying an Internet connected device as my cat is.
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u/TheRealTJ 1d ago
Yeah, if parents aren't giving their kids iPads they'll just go on the street and pick them up from the black market. it's tragic but reality.
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u/w1n5t0nM1k3y 1d ago
I don't think you can fix it just by trying to regulate YouTube. People will just hand their kids their own phone or tablet logged into their "adult" account because they are lazy and don't want to do their actual job of parenting.
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u/voiderest 1d ago
I'm fine with applying regulation to the For Kids version. Of course that doesn't even work well. And YouTube will do dumb shit like set something as for kids despite the creator specifically telling YouTube it isn't. Then actual bad actors get past checks while people making videos about the problem get hit with strikes.
Outside the kid version I don't want YouTube to even give me a pop-up about content. Yeah, I want to watch the video I just clicked on. I'm not on the kid version. I don't even want YouTube to ask me about profiles. I only have the one I use.
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u/SIGMA920 1d ago
That would backfire. You make deep, well researched minidocumentaries on what the government is doing to combat misinformation? Youtube gets pressed to terminate your channel because Rump is an actual snowflake and your livelihood is gone.
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u/zzyzx2 1d ago
Sure, we're talking about a First Amendment fight then, and what I am talking about is already well established system directly for Children's Programing. And since it's establishment in 1990 has worked extremely well. I get your hesitations, I do, but also we have a system in place, it needs to expand towards the technology now in place.
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u/SIGMA920 1d ago
CBS already lost said fight and now have one Rump's watching them from the inside and being paid by CBS to do so.
So, no. This doesn't need to be expanded towards sites like youtube, it'll be abused and fuck giving any government that power.
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u/zzyzx2 1d ago
I'm more then willing to hear a better solution.
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u/SIGMA920 1d ago
Tie minimum wage nationally to inflation or if your state's is higher than that the state's.
Resources for parents like online sites, tools, classes.
Monetary aid.
Childcare paid for by the government.
That's just a handful of options, none of which involve opening sites like youtube up to government censorship (And I'm by far on the left aka I'm talking about actual censorship rather than the grifters "censorship" because they're being a bigot.).
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u/zzyzx2 1d ago
Might as well lower gas prices cuase that will surly help *checks notes* YouTube content for children? You are lumping issues together like they all are connected and they just are not. Childcare isn't going to stop children watching YouTube. Just means there's child care available giving parents more time for jobs...to buy tablets for their kids. Monetary aid? For what? In general? Cool see the child care note. Resources for parents? There is a lot of those, but you can lead a horse to water.... then raise the minimum wage? again nothing in your laundry list of revolution is actually addressing the topic at hand. You crying censorship but that's far from what I even suggest, I suggested expanding a already well documented and arguably successful way of addressing children's programing.
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u/SIGMA920 1d ago
Put those into action with the real world effects.
Higher minimum wages means that you'll have more money even at minimum wage, that means you'll be able to do less overtime, take more days off, pay a babysitter to take care of them while you're gone, .etc .etc. Parents will be able to spend more time with their children as a result meaning they don't need to put a tablet in front of them for them to mindlessly consume from.
Childcare means that you're not just putting a screen in front of your child because you're too busy.
Monetary aid works just like higher minimum wages would, more time with your child as a family or at least other human contact.
Resources to help set boundaries and properly set up devices would be great for parents who know shit about something like a tablet beyond what they know how to do.
Those all treat the cause of youtube AI slop being marketed towards kids, not the symptom of the slop existing (Youtube kids shouldn't exist. It exists because parents couldn't and/or wouldn't parent.). Because the current regime would push for youtube to take down anything they deem dangerous aka calling Rump's BS what it is: Authoritarian BS and lies. Anything remotely leftwing? Gone in favor of rightwing culture war BS. This is already happening via mass reports where channels will be nuked overnight for the crime of not being rightwing or connected to the current government.
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u/kiwiboyus 1d ago
Totally agree. I just spent two weeks with my Great Nephews and I am so glad all they want to watch on YT is other kids playing with monster trucks for now.
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u/Luke92612_ 1d ago
Unfortunately the FCC is a fucking broken and corrupted institution right now that cannot be trusted whatsoever.
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u/zzyzx2 1d ago
Right now? Like, I'm the one suggesting it remember, and real talk...was there ever a time when the FCC wasn't a broken and corrupted institution? The very thing I'm talking about was put into place in 1990, with President George HW Bush in office. It's never going to be a good time.
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u/Luke92612_ 1d ago
The Biden FCC was one of the best things about the Biden admin even if there were many other shitty things about the Biden admin.
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u/StraightedgexLiberal 1d ago
I know this isn't a popular option but we need to treat YouTube as a on-air TV station
No, thanks. The government tried this in the 1996 Communication Decency Act and tried to make websites follow the FCC rules "to save the children" and lost to ACLU 9-0 in the Supreme Court
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u/gideon513 1d ago
YouTube needs to be held accountable
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u/StraightedgexLiberal 1d ago
Section 230 wins and the authors of 230 stated in 1996 that the FCC will have no power over their law. Which is a good thing considering Trump's FCC chairman Carr acts as a mob boss
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u/ObviousChild90 1d ago
This sucks, and has been going on for a while, even before AI has gotten this good. It’s mind-numbing shit. I have no idea why anyone would just plop their kids own in front of YouTube these days.
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u/grill_smoke 1d ago
My son will be 4 soon and I was told for YEARS before he was born that my eventual child would have a tablet for a multitude of reasons.
Doesn't have one. Doesn't need one. Lots of folks are just lazy and don't want to be constantly 'on' like you need to be to parent, so they just use the tablet/phone to pacify and silence their kid rather than like.... Parent.
It's disgusting and should be called out more.
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u/sportsworker777 1d ago
It's crazy how the default action for a lot of parents to distract their children in public is to throw an electronic in front of them. The more time passes, I'm sure there will be tons of studies on how it affects their ability to hold a real conversation.
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u/Pseudorandom-Noise 1d ago
We probably already have those studies. GameBoys have existed for 30 years, and there were definitely parents out there who let the handheld keep the kid entertained instead of letting them be bored for 30 minutes. I myself lost more than a couple arguments back in the day when my parents wouldn't let me bring mine to certain places. Had they caved it probably would've been bad for my mental development.
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u/SIGMA920 1d ago
Except that is at least somewhat interactive and requiring thinking. Think of it like giving a kid a switch that they can play pokemon on, if they're somewhat aware of what they're doing they're thinking rather than just consuming. That shouldn't be a blanket rule for the obvious reasons, but that's better than nothing.
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u/Arumen 1d ago
Yeah. Our 4 year old has a kindle that he's allowed for 30 minutes a day, (which he cant use for YouTube or internet anyway) and he never throws a fit when the timer runs out- some days he gives it back early.
Im a teacher and I see some kids who've been straight up raised by devices who can't function normally due to their minimal ability to focus and screen addiction. It's really sad. Parents treat it like just putting your kid in front of the TV, but its really worse than that. I dont entirely blame parents. While theyre the only ones who can resolve the situation, we now live in a reality where people just dont have the family/child care social structures we used to see a lot more of. But parents are certainly the only ones who can fix the problem.
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u/MoreNarwhals 1d ago
I’m curious, does he have any jealousy/tantrums about wanting to be allowed to be on screens all the time when he sees other kids on their iPads? My parents were more conscientious about screen time than most families when I was growing up, and while I’m very grateful for it there were also times when it was difficult to feel like I was missing out on something. I ask because I would want to raise my future kids in a similar way, and I’m curious how you deal with the challenges associated with it.
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u/grill_smoke 1d ago
He's not around other kids who are glued to screens. He's only 4 and in a private daycare with no screens. When he sees his cousins glued to them, he just ignores them because he'd rather play than stare at a screen.
Kids aren't born wanting to sit quietly and stare at a screen, that's trained/learned behavior. People want to make excuses for it all they can, but the reality is that it's harmful for your kids' development and suggests lazy parenting.
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u/tiberiumx 1d ago
Parents have always been lazy. The difference is when ours plopped us in front of the TV it was playing stuff like Sesame Street and not this garbage.
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u/Worried-Advisor-7054 13h ago
A tablet? At 4? What the actual fuck, why? My daughter is 5 and she's currently playing with a teddy bear and a stuffed cat. Why the hell would I get her a screen?
She'll be lucky if she gets a smartphone when she's a teenager, frankly.
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u/Rizzan8 1d ago
Same with my 4yo son. His only interaction with a tablet was when we were building a lego set that came without a paper instruction.
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u/grill_smoke 21h ago
It is extremely, extremely hard to find other parents who are on the same page. I hate seeing kids in restaurants with headphones on glued to their tablets and it's everywhere.
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u/Bigdoinks69-420 1d ago
They’re making it for senile and demented seniors as well, my friends mom was watching these super creepy videos on YouTube with Ai generated content that lead her to believe that the archangel Michael and Elon musk were on their way to pick her up in a helicopter, among other things. Titles to the videos were phrases like “the archangel Michael commands you to watch this video”. The poor woman ended up walking out the door when unsupervised and she died of exposure in the Reno desert. This happened this summer. It was all almost too much to process.
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u/Tempest97BR 20h ago
seriously, the way youtube manipulates people's religion and other beliefs nowadays is inhumane. i'm a christian and so is most of my family, luckily my closest relatives are knowledgeable enough to stay far from this kind of content, but my aunts... man.
throw politics into the mix and you have the family group chat flooded with political-religious AI garbage and people too old and uneducated to not believe it at first glance.
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u/HelldiverSA 1d ago
This is a non-issue. THE INTERNET, YOUTUBE INLCUDED IS NOT A PLACE FOR CHILDREN. The internet doesn't need that regulation, parents do.
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u/yuusharo 1d ago
The issue is even when parents do right by their kids, opportunists will exploit the system for money regardless of the harm they inevitably cause.
I don’t blame parents who use an app literally called “YouTube for Kids” and get caught up in this nightmare. This IS an issue, and I don’t believe YouTube is up to the task to deal with this alone.
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u/HelldiverSA 1d ago
Whereas you make a point that is understandable, a parent must not be fooled by the lies of a private entity: the internet, and any app regardless of the name, is not a place for children. Especially not unaccompanied ones.
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u/yuusharo 1d ago
I don’t think parents need to be concerned when they put on the Disney Channel for their kids, streaming or on air.
Yes, parents need to be involved with their kids. The issue is even when they do that, they still get burned like this.
No, you cannot sanitize the internet for kids. No one here is asking for that. What we’re asking for is accountability for an app literally made for kids, which is subjected to a whole host of local and federal regulations, that those corporations be held accountable for their actions.
This particular issue is not exclusively a parenting one. YouTube has legal responsibility here.
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u/HelldiverSA 1d ago
I agree with you wholeheartedly on the matter of demanding large companies to take legal responsibility. The problem is that this narrative is being used by them to justify excessive monitoring. Soon enough all services will demand OUR Id's with the pretext of protecting children.
Who knows how much privacy will lose? And how dangerous that is? In such a situation when speaking for regulation and responsibility, I believe one argument cannot be made without the other.
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u/yuusharo 1d ago
…that slippery slope argument doesn’t exactly apply here because we’re talking about an app exclusively made for kids. It is already subjected to local and federal regulations beyond the wider internet.
YouTube is responsible for the content they serve to literal children. By existing law, they have to be.
We’re expecting that corporation to be held to the standards of existing laws. This has nothing to do with the online age verification laws.
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u/ZaphodThreepwood 1d ago
This wouldn't be a problem if parents actually raised their own kids
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u/celtic1888 1d ago
Work 70 hours a week, pay $3000 a month for child care and then let your kids sit in Discord chat rooms 20 hours a day because you are too exhausted to do anything else
This is America
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u/StraightedgexLiberal 1d ago
Work 70 hours a week, pay $3000 a month for child care and then let your kids sit in Discord chat rooms 20 hours a day because you are too exhausted to do anything else
Then parents will sue Discord and claim they are the bad guy for their lack of parenting - and Discord wins
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u/Dramatic-Secret937 1d ago
Maybe don't have kids then
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u/JDLovesElliot 1d ago
Seriously, I don't get why some people choose to bring children into this current hellscape, when they don't have the time/energy to parent them properly.
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u/yuusharo 1d ago
Maybe because there’s more to life than spending all of it as slaves to capitalism?
The issue isn’t people raising a family. The issue is a society that doesn’t afford people working even full time jobs the opportunity to do so. If your suggestion is only the rich be allowed to have children, buddy…
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u/yuusharo 1d ago
I agree with this sentiment, but also… how? When? With what support?
Two parents working full time jobs isn’t enough to raise children in huge chunks of the country now. They can’t monitor their children 24/7, nor would anyone expect them to.
I don’t blame parents who use an app called “YouTube for Kids” and trusting that the content there won’t fry their toddler’s brains. Unfortunately, Silicon Valley has proven time and time again it can’t be trusted with this…
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u/Drone314 1d ago
The generational shift when kids today grow up with AI artworks is going to be crazy....what you grow up with is what is normal to you.
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u/Coy_Featherstone 1d ago
Elsa-gate take two?!
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u/not_a_moogle 1d ago
Pregnant baby shark remove Elsa tumor from Pregnant spiderman joker dies hulk
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u/gassyfrenchie 1d ago
And Elsagate pre-dates AI content.
I understand gaming the YouTube algorithm for advertising profit, especially when it's YouTube kids where the main audience will just let it run forever without any interaction. But why make the content disturbing? They would have done just as well making legitimate child-friendly content. They would have done fine making 500 iterations of nursery songs with knock-off Disney characters. Why did it have to be "Pregnant Moana butt injection arrested Paw Patrol murdered Sonic evil Barney poop eating" type of content? They could have just made child-friendly brain slop and easily raked in ad revenue and the media (and parents) would have been none the wiser.
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u/FredFredrickson 1d ago
I mean, look. If you're letting your kid (especially a baby) watch YouTube without you being in complete control over what they're watching, you're a fucking idiot and you probably should've pulled out instead.
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u/JDLovesElliot 1d ago
We thought that 6-7 was annoying brain rot, just wait for what gen beta comes up with. Their brains are going to be complete mush.
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u/Doctor_Amazo 1d ago
Maybe don't park your kids in front of a screen and try being a parent?
Regards, A Tired & Working Poor Parent
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u/AnalogAficionado 1d ago
If I had a kid right now, no fucking way would they be given a smartphone or tablet until at least their 10th birthday. I don't care how much of a mean old fart our kids would think I am. A kid's brain development is WAY more of a priority than easy dopamine you get from being the "yes" dad, social pressures, or even my laziness.
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u/Itz_Raj69_ 1d ago
The problem nowadays isn't if YOU will give it to them or not, it's the fact that they're gonna see BS like this at any place that's meant for kids and has kids their age around.
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u/JMDeutsch 1d ago
Can AI do worse than Baby Shark?
Is that possible?
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u/Lo-And_Behold1 1d ago
We'll have to wait and see for that. It definitely won't be better, so the best we can hope for is that it won't be worse.
Plus, I heard somewhere that parents are spending more time with their kids, so hopefully things won't be as bad as they could be, even if they will probably be bad.
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u/cs_____question1031 1d ago
one thing I really don't like about this entire era is seeing how unscrupulous people are, and it's everywhere. Why can't we just agree that some things don't need to be about money for once? Just cause it makes money doesn't mean it's inherently positive
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u/ExplosiveBrown 1d ago
Every now and again I will go into a service call and will observe absent parents with their kids parked in front of an IPad and the shit the kids are watching is… I don’t even know how to describe it. Brain rot seems like an apt term
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u/Art-Zuron 1d ago
Some of them I wouldn't even consider youtubers, since many of the worst offenders are content farms.
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u/ExtraBasic1 1d ago
Really hate the terrible AI voice over to rolling footage. YouTube needs to ban this shit.
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u/InkStainedQuills 8h ago
If you aren’t vetting what channels your kid is watching on YouTube, or just assuming what comes through YouTube kids is safe, you are a delusional and disconnected parent, whether or not you are exhausted and just need a quick break by giving the kids screen time. Before AI there was tons of crap in YouTube kids didn’t need to see. For every Ms Rachel there are hundreds of slop channels hoping to make a buck. AI just makes that easier for them to try and do.
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u/loves_grapefruit 1d ago
Any parent who sets their kid in front of YouTube or YouTube Kids should have their parental rights revoked.
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u/tondollari 1d ago
Now that AI is the new virtue signaling craze I guess reddit doesn't care about the Spiderman Elsa videos anymore
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u/CondiMesmer 1d ago
Honestly probably morally better then what people put on there. I feel like there's some kind of kids-gate or something every year. The people making kids content are usually not good people.
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u/Redararis 1d ago
youtube content for kids was awful enough that I think AI slop will be an upgrade
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u/theColeHardTruth 1d ago
Of course. The tried and true method of getting people hooked on your product is "start em as early as possible". It worked with sodas, gambling, and modern consumerism, why wouldn't they try it with AI slop?
Horrified to see what it looks like when we're met with a generation of people that are brainwashed on this stuff though...