How, and why, are there so many AI-generated videos of incredibly obscure/niche topics?

Submitted ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨sbeak@sopuli.xyz⁩ to ⁨nostupidquestions@lemmy.world⁩

When I search YouTube for videos related to my topic of research that I would consider pretty obscure, 95% of the videos are completely AI-generated, with ChatGPT scripts, AI-generated thumbnails, etc. It makes it really difficult to find video sources, so I have mostly given up on finding good information of YouTube nowadays.

For more general topics (smartphone reviews, food, fashion, and other topics that have a wider audience) the abundance of AI-generated videos makes sense. Pumping out thousands of videos that thousands of people will watch and earn a lot of money. But for the videos on more obscure topics rarely get many views and there doesn’t seem to be much of a reason for them to exist except to piss on people trying to find non-AI-generated sources.

For reference, I am looking for sources for a Physics research project on observed baryon asymmetry in the universe and the different proposed mechanisms to explain it, such as leptogenesis and ew baryogenesis. I am very surprised that topics like baryon asymmetry, CP violation, neutrinos, etc. are filled with AI slop to such an extent. It’s kind of insane. Who’s doing this, how are they doing this, and why???

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Lumidaub@feddit.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
It doesn’t matter that these niche topics don’t get many views because making them requires no effort. They’re throwing everything at the wall and some of it will stick, even if it’s just for a little while.

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RobotToaster@mander.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
It’s basic SEO slop logic applied to video.

All the popular topics are already crowded, so you shotgun very specific search terms.

For instance, if you have a web shop selling fish equipment, “how to keep fish” is probably extremely crowded, so you would target a bunch of specific search terms like “how to teach crabs to read classical Latin”

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- NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Now I wanna learn how to teach crabs to read classical Latin.
  
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Hond@piefed.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
My guesses(!): Big topics are already crowded by big channels which get an algorithmic boost because of their past success. Its harder to get your slop prominently shown and establish your content slop farm with these topics. While with niche topics its easier to get your video to the top of the search results.

There are tools opensource tools like https://n8n.io/ to automate the creation of slop content. From what i heard its piss easy to setup. Like here is a half an hour tutorial to set you up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u54cy2nQig

Then you shit out the slop content and hope your channel picks up. If it fails to drive numbers you abandon it and start with the next channel with the next topic variation. If you get lucky and the algorithm blesses you, you shit start to shit out hundreds of videos.

As seen eg in the video of redlyne about the dead internet theory. Where he looks a bit into the slop channels on youtube and other stuff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnJKOYOkRMk

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- thinkercharmercoderfarmer@slrpnk.net ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  First line of the pitch for n8n lol:
  
  Build with the precision of code or the speed of drag-n-drop.
  
  At least they’re upfront about the tradeoffs
  
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mrfriki@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
This is exactly the same thing that happened when search engine started to get shitty a few years ago. It’s just another step into enshitification :(

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plyth@feddit.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Just tells you how popular physics is among kids.

Can you link some videos? I would assume that the videos come from some reckless punks who are pushing for the idea that leptogenesis has also occurred prior to baryogenesis. They flood the zone to get new kids early on their side.

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- thinkercharmercoderfarmer@slrpnk.net ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  You baryodorks just can’t take the L can you.
  
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Boozilla@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Software that’s easy to use will enable people to crank out content. Most of that content will be bad. But there could be a few gems hidden in the “ocean of gray goo” of cheap content. This has been going on for a long time. People were talking about this happening with music tools decades ago.

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- porcoesphino@mander.xyz ⁨16⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
  Bad content with new tools isn’t a new issue for sure… but it seems pretty dominant in places
  
  Another example is/was every time a space X launch happening (particularly starship) if you search space x or elon musk on youtube. That used to be pretty crypto currency targeted slop though
  
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