Submitted 18 hours ago by Peter_Arbeitslos@feddit.org to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zfN9wnPvU0
Maybe not that interesting for everyone here, but I found no better community for this.
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 but they been directly being sponsored by big companies and in return making propoganda for them for a few years now.
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
Kurzgezagt is a slop channel too you know.
Tell me you live in an internet echo chamber without directly saying it…
You can’t really call it slop just because you disagree with their views and representations of things.
Their stuff is carefully researched and sourced, human crafted and open to critique. Whether they’re correct in their assessments or not is of course up for debate, but it’s good craftsmanship and they show their work.
Eh, there’s a lot of blending of conjecture, opinion and fact all presented as truth, and their handling of mistakes could be better - they’ve openly said if they consider a mistake to be minor then they don’t issue a correction or update.
I personally think that attitude towards production pushes it towards slop, as it means you don’t actually care about what you’re talking about, just entertainment and getting views, so why does it matter if it was created by an AI or a human, but everyone has a different bar for this and is entitled to opinions on it.
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.
Yea the channel is known for being biased and just weird in general
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.
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.
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?
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.
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 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.
!video@lemmy.world is a good one for stuff like this. That community loves their work.
This video is very probably also AI slop
Have you ever watched the channel? They even made a video outlining their process which takes months of work.
Nope, and this one is NOT going to change that … can’t take all that cutesy animation and the fast-flowing babble for 2 minutes, let alone 12
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.
i mean thier animation is pretty much looks like AI, they cant even use real photos, videos, which is out there already.
… wut?
Their animation style has been like this for over a decade
Ironic coming from one of the preeminent traditional slop channels
They use traditional animation for all their videos, what are you talking about?
Yes, that’s why I said traditional slop, not ai slop.
Some of their videos are pretty good, but taking funding from billionaires is never a good look.
It’s definitely not only that.
I and, from what I’ve seen discussed here and elsewhere online, many other people have stopped watching the channel because of many valid reasons completely unrelated to AI.
I haven’t watched a single one of their videos for years, something changed in their content and I just lost interest. Then there have been several controversial events throughout the years, both objective bad stuff and subjective things that made many loose interest and faith in their integrity.
They definitely became one of the many channels that lost it’s way because of how big it got. The animations became too “perfect” in a weird way, they lost their personality and they also got scared of having real opinions so they started doing this “all sides” shit and that’s when I tapped out.
I’ve tried to watch new videos from them about once every 6 months or so, but I can’t even make it past a minute without completely loosing interest.
You didn’t even watch this video.
In that it's mostly a merch ad hidden behind a clickbait title.
So I guess it's a good test for that sort of "just read the headline" response.
It's been a rough few days and I think I may be coming around. What hope is there to parse AI misinformation if people can't parse a Reddit-like link aggregator?
I may be done with this place at this point. It's just all bad. If not the whole Internet, certainly the whole of social media.
I mean, I didn’t watch this video because I lost interest when the channel started getting really dark around 2020. I just needed a laugh during the pandemic. I didn’t need 4 videos in a row about the end of the world, then a few about the end of the universe, followed by a future civil war. It was too much.
I think you might be referenced in this video 😉
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; pick up a real textbook if you want more.
An example:
This whole video felt like advertisement to me.
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.
mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca 2 hours ago
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
tobogganablaze@lemmus.org 47 minutes ago
There you go.
github.com/…/uBlockOrigin-HUGE-AI-Blocklist