YouTube Filling With Horrifying AI Slop for Children

"To me, the meaninglessness of these videos is a huge problem because they're just attention capture. And then the worst case is that it's so fantastical and full of attention capture that it is going to be cognitively overloading to the child."

"One video highlighted by the NYT shows a gooey liquid being squeezed into a glass of water, before turning into different animals representing each letter of the alphabet - only the animals are bizarre chimeras with mermaid tails. In another set to an off-key rendition of 'Old MacDonald Had a Farm,' a massive egg rolls out of a barn door before hatching an impossibly proportioned horse."

YouTube is flooding its platform with AI-generated content specifically targeting young children through its recommendation algorithm. An investigation by The New York Times examined over 1,000 YouTube Shorts and found that the algorithm prioritizes AI-created videos falsely marketed as educational, typically featuring alphabet and animal themes. These videos contain bizarre, incoherent imagery—such as animals transforming into vehicles or chimeras with mermaid tails—that lack genuine educational value. Developmental experts express concern that the meaningless, attention-grabbing nature of these videos could cognitively overload children and potentially harm their development, as the hyper-realistic visuals may interfere with normal cognitive processing in young viewers.

Read at Futurism