An AI content farm copied my video

A video essay documenting the rise of generative AI content on the internet powered by ChatGPT and its consequences for art and creativity on the internet.

0:00 A wild content farmer appears
1:33 How content farms work
5:03 Artificial intelligence and plagiarism
8:37 How the internet has changed
10:16 Why are people watching this garbage?
11:20 Parasocial relationships

[augustusgraham]

This tech bro grindset is so depressing

[RaisedEyebrowEmojii]

As a large language model, I cannot generate a reply to the script of the video.

[birchwwolf]

The Cyberpunk genre was literally about this. "Some bad actor is gunna kill the fun of technology by generating trash to scam people out of money, to corporatize the creative space and turn life into a dead mall."

[soupforthesoul]

remember kids. hitting "do not recommend channel" can minimise the reach of ai channels and if enough people do this they won't be as profitable

[Echomaniac]

This genuinely made me feel really empty inside as soon as you mentioned the vision of the future that some people may have where everything is extremely polished but it's just A.I.

[leolopp]

The content farm, funnily enough, reminds me of an old book. Reaper Man. Basically death gets fired for being too human, and ends up working on a a farm in the middle of nowhere. He sees a blacksmith making the first automated harvesting machine and gets very upset because he knows it's going to be the end of a way of life that kills the soul before the body dies. Just machines, no care or work ethic behind them, and millions out of a job for it.
This AI flood reminds me of that, only we can't just go out and stick a wrench into the gears and ask god for a second chance. But maybe we can hold on a while longer, show the wheat the care of human hands, err, _minds_ of loving sowers and reapers.
But we'd be crazy to deny we will be in the minority, at least for a while.

[BasementStudis]

this reminds me of a video i saw on how to reupload people's videos and everyone in the comments were on board with content theft. when some people called him out for it, he said they were just on a moral high horse. he also bullied small creators who disagreed with him.

[humungousRat]

And that's exactly it! AI does not have a 'self'. It can't gush about how much it enjoyed TV show X or game Y. It can't feel and express those actual feelings through art. What I find most interesting in art is not even just the artwork on its own, but the thoughts, feelings, and ideas behind it. When you add that in, it elevates something from a simple drawing, painting, animation (etc.) to something else; something more

[smugdodofart]

The lack of AI regulations is really depressing, Youtube actively rewards content farms and it’s so hard to find a genuine good watch I’m grateful that you haven’t done that!

[ipp]

Fuck bro this shit hit hard, I used to make trash videos like this with Chatgbt writing my script and Ai doing the voices. It’s just removes all the creativity out of your own video

[sniffxy]

"In the future, humour will be randomly generated"

[kariduanimations]

I’m unable to imagine how people can only see YouTube as a means to make money. When I joined YouTube it was because I love making art and I love animating, and I wanted to share it with the world. Money was not part of it. It seemed almost magical too, being able to post things I made where lots of people can see it. It’s still magical for me today. So these ai content farm people, from my perspective, seem to be disrespecting YouTube itself. It’s an affront to creativity.

[ogerponreject]

as someone who used to really enjoy animation memes back in the day (I know it's cringey), I would really love to see a rise for authenticity over quality again. there's so many nowadays that just focus on being as pretty/smooth/eye-catching as possible and not simply just animators having fun like it used to be

[dargon_]

It would be quite ironic if a content farm ended up copying this video as well

[Banarnar-ogeo]

I've noticed that i've been hitting the "Not interested" and "Don't recommend channel" buttons much more frequently because of all of the AI slop that's been flooding my recommendations.

[felipecardope]

Imagine talking about AI content farms using AI, that would be the worst the worst can get

[descuddlebat]

I'm hoping that a perfectly tailored AI feed would just inevitably get boring, but seeing the current iPad kids situation, I'm terrified of what a certain type of parent would do, given the opportunity to hand their kid an endless feed of AI crap

[WastedScoundrel]

You know what I like about you? Your optimism. It is way too easy to be negative and cynical nowadays.

[Dave]

Nailed it.
I've said to people for a while now that monetisation ruined the internet. I remember watching Let's Plays of people playing games around 2010 and they were just doing it for the love of doing it. Videos had a decent chance of being entertaining, or at the very least done in a unique style. Nowadays, people make videos with the sole intent of making money from them.
At the end of the day, why would you put the time and effort into uploading a video on YouTube if you aren't sure of its financial viability? Much safer to make the same sorts of videos as everyone else who is raking money in, rather than chance your own format.
How many times have you seen a video only to be greeted with "Hey there guys! Don't forget to smash that like button and subscribe so you don't miss a video!" Ugh... the cringe... How about a video with a clickbait-ey title? They don't just say that to be trendy, they say it because it's a fairly guaranteed way of upping their rankings of the algorithm and making their videos more prominent.
As you said, I think this was when people making unique stuff online started to drop off when they realised they just couldn't compete with what are basically money-making shitposts.

[ArkonArchive]

The ending of this video has filled me with Determination. I am so relieved I am not hopeless in creating genuine Content to help or educate others. Long time fan and just wanted to say Thank You. I think I have what I need to create more and get better at it now.