YouTube Playlists Are Advertising "No AI" as Entire Site Gets Choked by AI Slop
The flood of AI slop isn't letting up. And it's trickled into an online space where many seek solace and comfort, or simply a way of numbing the mind to the world in an attempt to accomplish anything productive: YouTube background music playlists. We especially mean those "lo-fi" music playlists, whose thumbnails invariably feature an anime character hunched over a desk somewhere with headphones on. But music from other genres, overwhelmingly instrumental, haven't been spared, either. Moody ambience is another favorite. Some of these channels pump out a brand new, hour long video every other day. It's gotten so bad […]
The flood of AI slop isn't letting up. And it's splashed into an online space where many seek solace and comfort, or simply a way of numbing the mind to the world in an attempt to accomplish anything productive: YouTube background music playlists.
We especially mean those "lo-fi" music playlists, whose thumbnails invariably feature an anime character hunched over a desk somewhere with headphones on. But music from other instrumental genres haven't been spared, either.
It's gotten so bad that playlists curators are now labelling their videos "No AI" — though there's no stopping them from simply lying, of course. Whatever your taste, if you're looking for something ambient, the odds that the algorithm will now recommend you AI-generated music are alarmingly high.
Late last year, TikTok music influencer Derrick Gee discovered that the music used by one popular lo-fi playlist channel was almost certainly entirely AI-generated. On top of the songs sounding incredibly generic — even for stuff designed to be thrown on the background — the videos' included tracklists never credited a single artist. Another red flag? The creator also liked a comment that said the songs sounded like they were made with Suno, one of the most popular AI tools for generating music.
Sadly, it's just one of many, and it's not even close to being the worst offender. Some of these channels pump out a brand new, hour or several-hour video every other day, usually with AI-generated artwork and never any tracklists.
Clearly, churning out AI music playlists can be a pretty profitable venture. The channel examined by Gee was created in September 2024, and by that November, had surged to well over 130,000 subscribers, according to analytics site SocialBlade, with some of the videos boasting millions of views.
Those views can be monetized, of course. As it happens, long-form videos are perfect material for running ads on. And by using AI to generate the music, you not only avoid the legwork of either actually creating or curating songs, but any copyright issues that could cut into your ad revenue or count as infractions against your channel. The practice has spawned an entire genre of video that explains how to get in on the grift, like this example, which is literally an AI presenter telling you about how to use AI.
"Does YouTube have a responsibility to restrict these kinds of channels, or is this the new norm?" Gee asked in his video investigation.
To be clear, AI music is already a major problem on platforms like Spotify. But Google, which owns YouTube, has been doing the absolute bare minimum to police AI on its platforms. YouTube first announced that it would require creators to disclose AI content in November 2023. But enforcement remains lax, not least of all because methods of detecting AI tend to be unreliable — though YouTube does seem to be doing more than platforms like Facebook or Pinterest. (It's also developing a tool to detect if someone used AI to generate your likeness.)
At the same time, Google has actively encouraged creators to try their hand at AI slop, releasing features like "Dream Screen" for generating AI videos for YouTube shorts, and "Dream Song" for generating instrumental AI soundtracks for the same purpose. If that's any indication, the slop machine hasn't even kicked into its highest gear yet.
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