I always skip the recommendations or pushed content ... I spend my time looking for things I actually want to watch ... and more often than not, it's content that is over two or three years old.

Well, pre AI it also wasn't that cool. I will never forgive BBC making me believe in flying penguins.

I trusted you BBC and you made me look like a fool!

This was my character changing moment. I broke bad, never able to trust anyone. All because of BBC flying penguins.

I also got fooled by some history docs that used AI. Some videos only used for some image generation, but others the script really felt like it was written and read by AI.

I'm sure they plan to make even more money later on when AI is no longer a free service.

Yes you can. You can polish it, paint it, cover it in glitter, name it "Duke of York", whatever. But it will always just bel a turd

It doesn't mean that people always try

In my experience, YouTube without history is the garbage. It looks like cheap Jerry Springer-style tv that apparently people in my country watch.

I taught YouTube for years what I watch, and thankfully recommendations mostly reflect that. I even open links from social media in incognito tabs to avoid polluting the recommendations. Although I'd still watch maybe one out of ten of them.

it's basically a modern version of RONCO late night ads.

The YT algorithm these days will suggest content based on what other people that you share warching patterns with. So you can avoid ai videos lile the plague you will stil get them recommended.

Problem is that AI didn't present as a "genre" and you get AI slop across the gamut.

I started a video because the title seemed like something I was interested in and the thumbnail seemed fine. Then within the first few seconds it was obviously lazy ai slop.

Short of limiting yourself to known acceptable channels. You can't really stave off the AI slop. Some categories get hit less often, but they are all over the place.

You watch that PeopleMakeGames video on Roblox and youtube spams you with Roblox player videos. Not every recommendation is spot on. Whenever I watch anything political (like the recent case of jair bolsonaro attempting to get rid of his ankle monitor with a fucking soldering iron), the recommendation spams me with right wing propaganda

I almost never watch anything outside private browsing or newpipe, so it's easy to see how shit gets recommended "by default".