AI Slop and the End of the 'Human' Internet

0:00This is an Indian YouTube channel called Bandar Apna Dost. They started uploading about six months ago and all the videos are fully generated by AI. They're all comedic and they center around this monkey living in a human world. Now, this channel has gained 3 million subscribers in the past six months. And there's real viewership. It's done 2 billion views. There's reports of this channel making really good money. And this type of channel is everywhere now. It's what people are calling slot. They're a type of artificially generated content that is flooding social media. Enter the age of AI-generated infinite slop.

0:37Now, AI didn't invent slop. Slop has been around forever. It's fast content that's made for the masses. But AI makes the production of slop exponential. And the problem with slop is that it's contributing to the even greater problem that we're seeing on the internet right now. Abundance. There's too much stuff. To put some numbers to that, there are 95 million photos and videos uploaded to Instagram every day. There are 23 million TikToks uploaded every day. and 20 million videos uploaded to YouTube every single day. And one of the main problems with this abundance is that a lot of the content is good.

1:13There's good content everywhere. It's on every screen and it's not just made by humans, it's also made by AI. And all this content is only getting better every day. The so-called AI slop is getting less sloppy. It is becoming harder and harder to discern which is which. The new Sora, it seems designed to make videos that look believable. And this wave of content that we're seeing every day is what we've been calling the abundance era. This point where the supply for content has gone so far beyond the actual demand. So much so that it's hard for any creator to actually stand out or any one thing to truly feel like a moment, to feel significant.

1:55I truly believe that abundance is the biggest threat to the individual creator right now. So I think it's really important for us to talk about what's going on in our feeds right now and how you defend against this. How do you survive as a creator through the abundance era? So today on the show, we're going to be breaking down this major shift that's taking place on the internet. It's basically like a slop survival guide. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a whole episode about AI slop. If you have thoughts on it, which you probably already do, you're probably already pissed a little bit about this episode.

2:24Or maybe a lot of it. Or maybe a lot of it. Fair. It's a weird time. Fair. But feel free to comment now with some feelings, thoughts, get it out, and then be open to the discussion. I don't know why I'm so mad. I'm not mad.

2:43Okay, so there was this new study done that shows that 20 % of a new YouTube user's shorts feed is AI slop. This company basically started a bunch of new YouTube accounts, and this is what they report. I don't know if it's true or not, but that's what they report. But that means that 80 % of the other content is human-made. And so this number that we said about YouTube of 20 million videos posted every day, which is a number published by YouTube, that's an overwhelming amount of human-made content as well. So it's important to recognize that in the abundance era, both things are happening at the same time.

3:17We've also, over the past 10 years, had a rise in good quality human creators, like just people who know how to make good videos. Yeah, for me, it starts with COVID, where all of a sudden people have all of this available time to watch content. Hollywood's not able to produce like it used to. So the demand is really high and the supply is actually low. And creators came in to fill that demand. The ad dollars moved to creators. And all of a sudden we had all of these individuals who became established professional creators. And it became very aspirational to be a creator. And that drove a lot of other people to want to be creators.

3:55I don't think there's like a single industry today that isn't touched by the creator economy. So now six years later, we are at a point in the creator economy where every niche is very saturated. And a lot of that also has to do, to be honest, with the fact that like copying or replicating content in the creator economy has little to no consequence. So if you go on YouTube, you're going to see, you know, hundreds of variations of the same video, and they all work. Here's a video about a secret room from a creator named Ben Aslart, who we know, and here's a very similar video from Topper Guild.

4:29If you just search 100 years of on YouTube, you will see an abundance of that video. And so that has also added to the abundance era, right? It's like the aspiration of being a creator and then the ability to just either come up with an original idea or replicate an idea that works. And apparently there were enough views for everyone to do similar types of things. Even with our smaller niche of the creator economy, I'll put these up on the screen right now. This is a video from us, a video from John Ushai, and then a video from Jordan Schwarzenberger. It's like every flavor within our industry.

5:09And it feels like we reach saturation even before AI. Yes. So even that abundance pre-AI has changed what it means to be an online creator. It's like increased competition for audience. Audiences have way more choice, right? And things are much more fractured and more niche. It's also why we have a reduction in that feeling of like things being a big deal is because everyone is in their own pocket. Everyone's in their own little pocket. And so it's harder to understand what we all watch, right? Or what we're all into. So now take that effect right there that is human made and pile on this surge of AI video that's coming.

5:49Now, originally, I will say I was part of the creator class that was like, AI video, no one's going to watch that. But we've put together seven examples of AI videos that have come across our feed that we want to show you guys. and talk about because they're so substantial to just understand what is happening right now. Okay. First up, we have Neurosama. My name is Neurosama, but you can call me Neuro. I'm an artificial intelligence created with the singular purpose of entertaining you all. So Neurosama is a VTuber, which means virtual YouTuber. But Neurosama is a very unique VTuber because she is LLM-based, like AI-based.

6:30Her creator uses a combination of LLMs and different software to make sure that she can be live on Twitch, playing video games, interacting with chat, responding to chat. She can essentially see what's happening on screen in the video game. And she has a personality and a tone to her. Now, the thing about Nurisama that has really stuck out to me is she has a real community to the point where she hosted a subathon at the beginning of this year and became the most subscribed to Twitch streamer in paid subs, meaning 165 ,000 people were paying to subscribe to Nurisama. Which comes with estimates that she's making$400 ,000 a month, roughly.

7:11Yeah, in top line. But yeah, that's no joke. That's like real, real people, real money, real connection. Let me just play a clip from her real quick. You know what my favorite thing is? Cats and eating them whole while they're still warm and fresh from the oven. What? Okay. Uh-huh. So I played that clip only to show you that there's a perspective there. Like it is jarring. It is unhinged. It's entertaining. Yeah. The thing I watched now, I mean, that's really watered down. It's bizarre. That's really bizarre. But I think that that is probably the enjoyment of it. It is unpredictable in a way a human can't be.

7:50I think Neurosama is just proof that even if AI content doesn't look human, if the story's good enough, people will tune in. And there's a real business there. People will transact. Yeah. I mean, if you're unfamiliar with Lil Mikaela. Lil Mikaela was an Instagram influencer, still around actually, but started a few years ago or maybe 10 years ago at this point. But like a character that showed up on Instagram as an influencer way before her time. But that was a real business. Like she was doing brand deals. She was doing music. Like it was basically a virtual character created on Instagram. And people thought that was weird because Instagram has historically been a place for your friends, for authenticity, for real people.

8:33Exactly. I'm going to play a clip now from Instagram. You can't make AI look real unless you use this. A three-step workflow that I give you at the end. First, force AI to inject realism with these tokens. Surface roughness, skin grain, micro bumps. But your prompt is only 30. I don't know what side of Instagram they think I'm on, but I - This is all I get. I keep getting like, hey, this is how you make AI look human. Yeah, so if we go from like Neurosama, which is, you know, LLM based, but clearly not human, to little Michaela, which was a little bit more like, okay, human-like, to now the suggestion is make it indistinguishable.

9:14Like literally the suggestion there is make it indistinguishable. And I will say, I have sent you a few Instagram reels that I didn't know weren't real people. And that is a concerning era for me. And yet the platform knows that this is happening and it's the wave of the future. Adam Masseri put out a post at the end of 2025, and he said, relatively quickly, AI will create any aesthetic you like, including an imperfect one that presents as authentic. He goes on to say that this will be one of the first times in human history where we have to change the relationship with our eyes and whether we can believe them or not.

9:56And I think it's a really important thing to recognize that that was the premise of the creator economy, was was authenticity it was real people right like the premise of instagram was the extension of reality tv and the kind of like democratization of reality tv which has been what gave birth to the creator economy you can you feel like you can trust emma chamberlain because you know who she is she's showing her true self there's it's not the hollywood star system where someone's been made to be something maybe that they're not sure these are supposed to be real people so in the creator economy and on YouTube, when things started to get more produced, we saw a rise in podcasts because podcasting was just what this is.

10:40We're just sitting here, we're talking, and you're watching us talk. It's real. It's hard not to be yourself in a long-form conversation. Yeah. Yeah. So like long conversations. So I am scrolling Instagram two nights ago, and I come across this podcast setting with Mr. Beast. Obviously, we've had Jimmy on many times on this show. And I'm like, oh, I've never seen this one. I think I've seen almost every Mr. Beast podcast, but I've never seen this one. I would post 100 videos per day, testing every single hook from different angles. How would you record them? I mean, if you're starting over, you wouldn't have the budget to buy and destroy Lamborghinis.

11:16Oh, I don't need a budget. I just go all in on AI cloning. Me and my team would create all the content using just one single photo of me. So this way, I don't spend time recording, and I just focus on bringing money. And technically, I can destroy Lamborghinis without even buying them. Obviously, as you watch it a little bit more, you're like, that's AI. Of course. Of course. But on first glance, I was like, wait, what? And both people in that are AI, the host and Jimmy. And this account has interviews with Mark Zuckerberg and other notable people that look really real. And I'm recognizing as this gets better, the subject matter might just be interesting.

11:52Right now, again, like I don't want to watch that. I have an adverse reaction to it, but there's a lot of people, like these all have real views. This is real viewership. People are landing on this and you can see where this is going. Yeah. This is a piece of content that would replace a video that we made. 100%. 100%. 100%. Flat out. Yes. Okay. So that leads us to AI and these tools being used to duplicate real people. That guy obviously is not working with Mr. Beast to replicate Mr. Beast. But what we're seeing are creators and celebrities creating digital twins of themselves. So this concept really hit headlines with Kabi Lame doing a reported deal for almost a billion dollars with this company in Hong Kong.

12:42And the concept was essentially take him, because he's the most followed TikToker in the world, one of the most recognizable faces, and buy out the rights to his name, image, and likeness to create digital twins for live shopping in multiple languages all over the world. So 24-7 live shopping streams with Kaby Lame's face all over the world. Now, who knows about the ins and outs of this deal? It seems very strange, but the crux of it is the ability to take a recognizable face and commercialize it through putting it everywhere. Now, this concept of taking a familiar face and commercializing that face or monetizing that face across a bunch of different avenues is not unique to AI or this moment.

13:27It has happened in Hollywood before and is a model in Hollywood. Shaq is one of the first people to do this with a group called Authentic Brands Group. He's the largest shareholder in this company. But if you're wondering why you see Shaq in everything, like Gold Bond Shaq, Papa John's Shaq, Insurance General Shaq. It's because he sold the rights to essentially his face, to his name, image, and likeness. And now, I think the copy deal just shows us is that that could eventually happen to a crazy degree through AI digital twins. Yeah, it might actually happen differently. You might not have to pay a billion dollars.

14:02It might just be like, you know, a licensing model of I get, you know, I get your face and if I generate money, whatever. Basically, all this to say is like this is a thing. Like there have been technically like twins created, right? Like Kevin Hart and Shaq can exist all over the world and that trades at a really high valuation. But AI enables this to a exponential degree. And we are already seeing celebrities do this. Y 'all see what type of morning we have it? Straight off the porch into the swamp. This ain't no stuffed animal. This the real deal gator right here. Keep the jaw pressed. You let go, he gets you.

14:37I mean, that's like good. So that, I'm sure you know who that is. Yeah, that's AI Snoop Dogg. If you're not watching, that is AI Snoop Dogg wrestling an alligator. And it looks really real. Let me tell you, that looks really real and that has real engagement. What is that? 80 ,000 likes on this? People are laughing nonstop in the comments. I mean, it's funny. It's funny to watch. And this is an Instagram account called Death Row AI. And it is run by a creator who we're just chatting with upstairs here at the Lighthouse, Jesse Wellens, who if you probably know him from YouTube, he was prank first prank.

15:14but jesse is the ai director i think it's called or ai prompt director ai creative director of this account and so his job here is to take snoop's name image and likeness and create funny content far and wide yeah spread it far and wide like this is happening this digital twin thing is happening and if you're sitting there thinking okay yeah it's happening but this account has an art director someone's being paid to make these or kabi lame there's this huge transaction and a company behind it. CEO of YouTube, Neil Mohan, said in his most recent letter that this year you're going to be able to create shorts with your own likeness.

15:52So this technology is being opened up to anyone and everyone. I mean, that's really significant. Like, because obviously Instagram will follow, obviously TikTok will follow, obviously. And we saw it with Sora. So OpenAI's video platform, we saw this where you open up Sora. I did it. I created a model of myself and then I could use my own likeness to generate videos. And it was pretty weird, but I could also press a button saying anyone can use my likeness. That is why you saw AI Jake Paul everywhere. Technically out, like open sourcing your digital twin to the public. Okay. If you're listening or watching and you are skeptical, we have a couple more examples here that I think may push you over the edge.

16:33Okay. So most of the examples we've shown you are short form content and it feels more realistic to go, okay, all right, in short form, that's fine. Like, that'll probably happen. But I found a new long-form channel on YouTube that feels very alarming. This morning at 6.47 a.m. Eastern Time, four IRS Criminal Investigation Division agents arrived at the offices of Mazar's USA in Midtown Manhattan. They carried federal grand jury subpoenas demanding 15 years of Donald Trump's tax preparation documents. And this, for me, feels clearly based off the human creator Legal Eagle. Now, all this highlights why it's so important to get a great lawyer when you're dealing with your own case.

17:12The AI lawyer here who's making similar content talking about cases is generating real views. Hundreds of thousands of views. Hundreds of thousands of views. Very comparable to Legal Eagle. Because you take a step back and once you get into it, if you're interested in the subject matter, you just accept it. You just accept his delivery. And the fact that people are watching that is a threat and a problem for a channel like Legal Eagle. And you look at, again, the culture that we mentioned earlier of the internet, which is find what works and replicate it. That was more friction heavy with a human of like, I got to copy this person's thing.

17:50Maybe I have some guilt associated with copying this thing. Maybe it's just hard logistically to try and copy it. With AI, it's like, I don't know, whoever's prompting this, I assume has very little friction to try and figure this out, right? Just like, okay, yeah, cool. Legal Eagle works. Okay, let me replicate it. It's all just adding to this abundance. We've covered Twitch. We've covered short form. We've covered podcasts, long form. Now let's look at Hollywood. Yeah, because YouTube's one thing. But Hollywood is Hollywood. Is Hollywood. Yeah, yeah. But these two examples are crazy. Here we go.

18:24Okay, this first one is a trailer for a documentary, a mockumentary about a fake moon landing. Yeah. And everyone believed us. People just always want to believe that something is real. We've all seen the pictures, but is there any actual proof that you were on the moon? Um, well, we had cameras there. What other proof do you need? This one is insane, dude. I would recommend watching that in full. That one is insane. As a fan of documentaries, as guys who made documentaries. The music is great. The vintage footage is great. and it's done by a German creator named Simon Mayer. He's using Kling.

19:03I really don't know what Kling is, but - I know Kling. You know Kling? I don't know Kling. I'm chronically on. Why'd you raise your eyebrows like, I know Kling? I know Kling. I don't know, man. I just know things. So that one hooked me just from a story perspective. That one is good. I mean, when I watched that, what I recognized was, depending on how fast that was made, like right now, obviously the cultural and political zeitgeist is all about Jeffrey Epstein, right? in the Epstein files. Yeah. And there's a lot of people searching, how did this guy get rich? What's his backstory? All this. If somebody made a documentary like that about the backstory of all this, people would watch it.

19:41Because you just - Even with a disclaimer that said like, these visuals are AI generated, they are interpretations. Now, the crazy thing is, this already happened with the Epstein files, but it's like this true crime audio podcast. You are listening to the Epstein files, the world's first AI native investigation into the case that traditional journalism simply could not handle. And people are listening. It did 100 ,000 downloads in the first week. Let's think about the Olympics. The Olympics are about to happen in 2028 in LA. The Winter Olympics are this year. Let's say that there's a big story of an Olympian.

20:16Oh, that American won something or that French guy won, you know, this crazy pole vaulting, like whatever goes viral on the internet. But let's say there's some big Olympic moment that happens and somebody goes viral. Imagine having a documentary on that person's backstory that week. Yeah, I truly believe that that's coming. Yeah. Okay, now the last AI generated video before we break down what this all means. My lords and gentlemen, the rebellious war begun in the province of Massachusetts its bay is become more general and is manifestly carried on for the purpose of establishing an independent empire.

21:02Yeah, so Darren Aronofsky, legendary filmmaker. His production company partnered with Google DeepMind to make this series for Time Magazine's YouTube channel. All of the images and video are generated with AI. The voices are human. It was edited by humans. There was a lot of pushback to this. I think because they're pissed, of course, that someone from within Hollywood is doing something that cuts a lot of humans out of the equation. Let alone outside of Hollywood. If you scroll Twitter right now and just look at some of the outputs from C-Dance, which is ByteDance's new model, you're going to see Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt and major actors' likenesses.

21:46He was a good man! He knew too much about our Russia operations. He had to die. And now you die too. The industry of Hollywood is full of all types of labor, like building sets, costume designers, gaffers, sound engineers, actors, extras. Essentially the epitome of replacement, of like replacement via AI in abundance. Yeah. And I think because of that, it is very natural, of course. I mean, I'm like this too for us to go like, this, this is so threatening to everything we love about creativity and filmmaking. I just want everyone who's watching this to apply a consumer perspective to this. And imagine like I have a one year old son, you have a seven month old son.

22:38They will not know a different world. No. And by the time they're watching what's on their screens, there will be no novelty to whether it's made with AI or not. There will be no disclaimers, in my opinion. I don't think there will be. You know, I said this before, but I make graphics in After Effects. It doesn't look like real life. I don't tell people it's not real or that I used After Effects. Right. It's just a tool that I use. Yeah. Now, we are saying this from the perspective of being two guys who sit in chairs and talk for a living and like make YouTube videos for a living. And our ability to earn a living and continue building our brand and this channel and this relationship with you guys has all been predicated on the fact that we are having a real connection with you guys, right?

23:20With all of you who are listening and watching. And so I just want to put that out there as like, this is a threat to us. And we are definitely concerned about this. This is concerning. But I also want to be a realist here. Well, I think naturally you and I have been searching for answers to this. Yeah. We talk about this a lot. And with all the creators that we've been interviewing lately, we've been asking questions with a curious mind to, okay, what are we going to do about all this abundance? Yeah. How are we going to survive? Because I really like this career. Yeah, this is super fun. And also like filmmaking, creativity and storytelling and having a connection with an audience, that's really fun.

23:58It's fulfilling. It's gratifying. I want everyone else to be able to do it. So how do we survive this? Our whole channel is about helping other people do this thing too. So yeah. Okay, before we move on and talk about how you can defend yourself against all of this abundance, let's first recap what we've talked about. Number one, abundance is here and it was here even before the rise of AI video, but it's about to get way worse with AI video. Next, we're seeing the end of authenticity as a defense mechanism for human-made content. at least the perception of authenticity. The perception of authenticity.

24:35Yeah, at least the perception of authenticity because I think the term is changing and we'll talk about that. AI is moving towards being able to mimic human authenticity. Yes. And then abundance is coming to every screen. It's coming to Twitch, to Instagram, TikTok, short form, long form podcasts. It's coming to long form YouTube and it's coming to Hollywood. Can I play a song? Please, yeah.

25:15Do you want me to say it or you want to say it? It's AI. That's AI. Oh, man. This is an artist named Kayla Cross. That song has 9.4 million streams on Spotify. She is a rising artist and she is not real. I was really hoping it was Olivia Dean and you just wanted to give us a little bit of a break from all this AI. AI is coming for your ears as well, but I assume somebody went, Olivia Dean's hot. Let me make a similar artist. Let me make a similar artist. That can show up on the Spotify playlist next to her. All right, everybody. We maybe have taken you down a little bit here with all of these case studies and examples, but let's bring you back up.