While the internet is increasingly covered by content generated by artificial intelligence, a more worrying trend is emerging.
In particular, young children, even children under two years old, are becoming the subjects of direct contact with mass-produced content produced by AI, lacking educational value and can be harmful.
According to Bloomberg, a mass-produced and almost unvaluable video wave AI slop is spreading on YouTube and attracting a large number of views from beginners under two years old.
AI slop does not stop at soricate, repetitive cartoon videos but also includes images and videos created or edited with AI tools, with a computer reader voice that sounds "educational" but in fact has no real value.
This is especially alarming as many parents still let young children access YouTube even though the YouTube Kids platform is designed for children aged 2 to 12.
A survey by the Pew Center shows that more than 60% of parents with children under two admit that their children watch YouTube regularly.
Although there are no clear statistics on how much AI video is dominating YouTube Kids, content creators seem to have quickly taken advantage of this vulnerability to post AI-generated junk videos.
Some channels with millions of public followers provide instructions on how to create low-quality AI videos but still attract viewers and unintentionally become the content that young children come into contact with every day.
Development psychology also warns of the risks as Michael Robb, an expert quoted by Bloomberg, believes that AI is giving creators unlimited tools to produce poor quality videos, disguised as educational content for children.
Although YouTube has implemented a number of measures to limit overused AI videos, many of the content still leaks into the monitoring system, survive publicly and attract hundreds of thousands of views from young children.
In the context of AI development being too fast and regulations not keeping up, experts say parents need to closely monitor the content that children watch, especially when AI tools are being used as a "factory" for producing unlimited waste content.
