kurzgesagt – AI Slop Is Killing Our Channel

Their quality going down is probably what’s killing their channel. Every video is a merch ad, and the occasional shilling for the fossil fuel industry probably doesn’t help any.

These things are to be expected when you get bought by private equity, but let’s not be dishonest and say it’s all AI slop that’s killing them.

When did they shill for fossil fuel? Not saying it didn't happen, just wondering
- Idk about fossil fuels specifically but they been directly being sponsored by big companies and in return making propoganda for them for a few years now.
  https://youtu.be/HjHMoNGqQTI
- They accepted, and continue to accept a great amount of money from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. That foundation owns over $11 billion in investments in the fossil fuel industry, including coal-burning utility companies.
  In return, there were quite a few videos that Kurzgesagt admits were funded directly by the Foundation, that exaggerate the positive influence corporations owned by the foundation have had. Videos which the CEO of Kurzgesagt has admitted they probably would not have made if the Foundation had not paid for them.
These things are to be expected when you get bought by private equity,
Excuse me, what?
- They are owned by private equity? It's pretty common these days for the more popular YT channels. Veritasium, Astrum, Fireship, fern., and Hoog are some other examples. Basically, if it's a popular YT channel, it's either owned by PE, in negotiations to be acquired by PE, or pursued by a PE firm in the hopes that they can acquire it. Private equity is accelerating their acquisitions, actually, and they want to control everything that captures the attention of viewers.
  Here's a video that talks about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ-rRXWhElI
I just looked at the public company records and they are not owned by private equity. What are you talking about?

And of course, the video was preempted by an AI slop ad of a talking monkey wearing a neck brace.

Use Firefox + uBlock Origin on desktop and on mobile. Only watch YouTube via Firefox. Never see these bullshit ads again.
Currently adblocking is winning the war of the technical evolution of control vs. resistance.
- Shoutout to Revanced patcher if you'd like an app equivalent with the same level of customization
Sounds better than the fucking singing purple llama I get all the time ruining a song from Dirty Dancing by changing the ‘I’ to ‘AI’.
‘AI had the time of my life’ doesn’t even make sense!
- It is literally AI taking time out of of your life, I don't see how that doesn't make sense to you.

I feel like the title doesn't match the content.

The video gives an elaborate description on their evaluation of "AI" and it's influence on the Internet at large. And then they conclude with "we'll continue like before" directly contradicting the title.

Feels disingenuous. And ironic after they talked about their extensive investments into fact checking.

The video gives an elaborate description on their evaluation of “AI” and it’s influence on the Internet at large. And then they conclude with “we’ll continue like before” directly contradicting the title.
You missed the entire point of the video.
The claims are simple:
in order to make this type of videos, they need to be able to reliable fact check
data on the internet is increasingly polluted by AI slop, making it harder to distinguish fact from slop
for now, they have no choice but to continue while being extra vigilant... but eventually, if things do not change, they will be unable to perform
It's the exact same situation about climate change... we need to act now, most of us will suffer otherwise but for now we continue on living while trying to adjust where we can (recycling, reusing, less/no meat, etc) even if we know that will not be enough long term.
- Not the guy you're answering to, but I kind of agree with him, the point is fuzzy and the title is clickbaity. With sucha title I expected they would present numbers and figures.
DeArrow shows the title as something like "why you can't trust AI with facts"
- I love DeArrow so much. Best addon I've ever donated to, very worth it
Awww is it the first youtube video you watched?
Do you think if we pool every AI in the world it will be able to figure out the difference between its and it's? Seems unlikely.
The channel hat always been disingenuous. It's not the first video they have where they develop a well written essay that has conclusions that make no sense with the information presented. It's the theater of research without any of the substance. The editors just do whatever they want, under the expectations that the writing team will support their preconceived notion.
They're an entertainment channel, not a science communication channel. They have said some awful, totally not fact supported stuff in the past.
- They have said some awful, totally not fact supported stuff in the past.
  Like?
- As far as science channels go, you've got SpaceTime for college students, Veritasium for high schoolers, and Kurzgesagt for newborn infants or maybe a smart dog. It's probably at about the right level if you want to explain science to an Australian Shepherd.
Yea the channel is known for being biased and just weird in general
- It isn't known for those things at all.

Some of their videos are pretty good, but taking funding from billionaires is never a good look.

!videos@lemmy.world is a good one for stuff like this. That community loves their work.

world no thank you

I want an ad / DNS blocklist for AI slop. I want to not even be able to go to HiSToRiAn AsLeEp In ThE WoOdS channels on my networks and devices

This may not be a cure-all, but it's pretty comprehensive.

I watched this with my son last night. Quite enjoyed it. I find the cadences of the narrator's voice oddly soothing, although ironically it sounds very like an AI voice.

I've been watching that channel for years it's very high quality.
- I mean there's been some controversy surrounding a number of their videos. Some were under fire for poor research or demonstrating a singular, not widely-held view on certain topics. And I think for one video they were accused of plagiarism iirc. This was when it was still somewhat early days for the channel, haven't followed them since so not sure what the state is now.
What do you think AI voices were trained off of?
probably using an AI voice themselves.

I mean, you're petroleum industry apologists, so for a change I'm not that broken up.

🚨 🚨 PURITY TEST INCOMING! 🚨 🚨
- I feel like propping up the industry primarily responsible for one of the largest (if not the largest) crises in human history is an appropriate place to draw a line.
Kurzgesagt? I didn't know this, how come?
- They have gotten money from Bill Gates foundation. Still its a pop sci YouTube and does a good job at it. Some say its spreading misinformation or that context is missing. I don't really see malicious intentions. Expecting more of a pop sci publication is kind of absurd; take a real class and study if you want more.
  An example:
  How Kurzgesagt Cooks Propaganda For Billionaires

Ironic coming from one of the preeminent traditional slop channels

I dont think its AI Slop thats "killing the channel" if that statement is even remotely true its due to more and more of their videos being slop sci low information videos. The target audience must be stoners who want to watch something that is visually appealing and feels educational

For what it's worth, I kinda agree. Maybe I've changed but I feel like their content over the last year or two is nowhere near as good as it was.
Maybe I've just had a change in taste, though.
They're fine. Jesus christ.
terrible animations, and its worst than other "education science channels" the least they could do is use actual footage or pictures of the things hes discussing.

This whole video felt like an advertisement to me. I’d already seen it twice, was it necessary to crosspost it again? You could at least have waited a couple of weeks before reposting the same content.

Kurzgesagt became (non AI) slop itself so im not surprised. All the videos of them that i have watched in the past few years were disappointments.

I have noticed that I don't click on their videos as fast. Used to be that as soon as you see a video in the feed it was an instant click.

Yeah, me too. This was instant click though.

This video is very probably also AI slop

They have been doing this animation style since 2013.
Why do you think they use AI?
I think your AI senses are broken, you see AI everywhere where there is not. You're like the extreme opposite of AI Tech Bro. Like you have paranoid AI-phobia or something.
- ... wut?
- Their animation style has been like this for over a decade

Have they considered that they're just not a great channel?

Have you actually watched any of their videos? That's obviously not true