Vladimir Campos

I use YouTube a lot — for watching news from TV channels, scientists sharing content about their specialties, and independent journalists. It’s also a great place to follow creative people building cool things, and, of course, for learning and teaching. But the AI problem is becoming uncontrollable, gradually making the platform less enjoyable.

It feels like every day there’s a batch of new channels entirely created by AI. They usually follow an AI voiceover paired with an AI B-roll formula. It used to be easy to identify the ones made by humans — but as AI gets better, it’s becoming nearly impossible to tell the difference.

YouTube itself is part of the problem, since they keep suggesting this type of content without any warning. And something tells me that a company that runs Gemini is fully capable of distinguishing what’s real and what’s not. Anyway, I digress.

Trying to fix this myself, I’ve decided that if I don’t see a face — or other signals that help me identify the content as human-made — I’m not watching or subscribing. In addition to that, I’m making sure to click those three dots and select “Don’t recommend channel,” hoping that sends a signal to the algorithm. I’m probably being too naive to think that will change anything, but at least I’ll stop seeing part of those annoying videos in my feed.

If you are a creator, don’t worry about having a tight studio or expensive setup. Many of the most interesting channels I watch are just a person talking in front of a super-basic background. Just focus on your message. I’ll definitely watch captivating content with the ugliest possible background — but without any doubt, I’ll turn away from the most beautiful AI-generated channel in no time.

As for my channel, although I believe it is still possible to know it is not AI-created, I’ll start adding a “Made by a Human” stamp on the thumbnails, just like I’ve already done on my website.