AI Generated 'Boring History' Videos Are Flooding YouTube, Drowning Out Real History
- Reference: 0178996824
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/09/03/2028206/ai-generated-boring-history-videos-are-flooding-youtube-drowning-out-real-history
- Source link:
> As I do most nights, I was listening to YouTube videos to fall asleep the other night. Sometime around 3 a.m., I woke up because the video YouTube was autoplaying started going "FEEEEEEEE." The video was called "Boring History for Sleep | How Medieval PEASANTS Survived the Coldest Nights and more." It is two hours long, has 2.3 million views, and, an hour and 15 minutes into the video, the AI-generated voice glitched. "In the end, Anne Boleyn won a kind of immortality. Not through her survival, but through her indelible impact on history. FEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE," the narrator says in a fake British accent. "By the early 1770s, the American colonies simmered like a pot left too long over a roaring fire," it continued. The video was from a channel I hadn't seen before, called " [1]Sleepless Historian ." I took my headphones out, didn't think much of it at the time, rolled over, and fell back asleep.
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> The next night, when I went to pick a new video to fall asleep to, my YouTube homepage was full of videos from Sleepless Historian and several similar-sounding channels like [2]Boring History Bites , [3]History Before Sleep , [4]The Snoozetorian , [5]Historian Sleepy , and [6]Dreamoria . Lots of these videos nominally check the boxes for what I want from something to fall asleep to. Almost all of them are more than three hours long, and they are about things I don't know much about. Some video titles include "Unusual Medieval Cures for Common Illnesses," "The Entire History of the American Frontier," "What It Was Like to Visit a BR0THEL in Pompeii," and "What GETTING WASTED Was Like in Medieval Times." One of the channels has even been [7]livestreaming this "history " 24/7 for weeks.
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> In the daytime, when I was not groggy and half asleep, it quickly became obvious to me that all of these videos are AI generated, and that they are part of a sophisticated and growing AI slop content ecosystem that is flooding YouTube, is drowning out human-made content created by real anthropologists and historians who spend weeks or months researching, fact-checking, scripting, recording, and editing their videos, and are [8]quite literally rewriting history with surface-level, automated drek that the YouTube algorithm delivers to people. YouTube has said it will demonetize or [9]otherwise crack down on "mass produced" videos , but it is not clear whether that has had any sort of impact on the proliferation of AI-generated videos on the platform, and none of the people I spoke to for this article have noticed any change.
"It's completely shocking to me," Pete Kelly, who runs the popular [10]History Time YouTube channel, told Koebler in a phone interview. "It used to be enough to spend your entire life researching, writing, narrating, editing, doing all these things to make a video, but now someone can come along and they can do the same thing in a day instead of it taking six months, and the videos are not accurate. The visuals they use are completely inaccurate often. And I'm fearful because this is everywhere."
"I absolutely hate it, primarily the fact that they're historically inaccurate," Kelly added. "So it worries me because it's just the same things being regurgitated over and over again. [...] It's worrying to me just for humanity. Not to get too high brow, but it's not good for the state of knowledge in the world. It makes me worry for the future."
[1] https://www.youtube.com/@SleeplessHistorian?ref=404media.co
[2] https://www.youtube.com/@BoringHistoryBites?ref=404media.co
[3] https://www.youtube.com/@historyfallasleep-h1s?ref=404media.co
[4] https://www.youtube.com/@snoozetorian
[5] https://www.youtube.com/@HistorianSleepy
[6] https://www.youtube.com/@TheDreamoria
[7] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1v8aI596Rc&ref=404media.co
[8] https://www.404media.co/ai-generated-boring-history-videos-are-flooding-youtube-and-drowning-out-real-history/
[9] https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/09/youtube-prepares-crackdown-on-mass-produced-and-repetitive-videos-as-concern-over-ai-slop-grows/?ref=404media.co
[10] https://www.youtube.com/@HistoryTime/videos
There are better channels to fall asleep to (Score:2)
If this is what you want from a Youtube channel, have a look at [1]Anton Petrov's channel [youtube.com]. He talks about non-controversial science topics, mostly astronomy and biology, in a voice that makes Bob Ross appear like an agitated man.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/@whatdamath/videos
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Thanks for the tip. It was hard enough to find decent content on YT before the bots took over. The AI narration was bad enough to listen to, now we've got AI narration with absolute garbage content to go along with it. It's gotten to the point that unless it's got an actual narrator on-screen I refuse to watch it. Don't get me started on the "shorts" bullshit. I need to spend more time on Nebula.
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To be fair, "Video to go to sleep to" isn't really compatible with interesting topics, and I find most of Anton's videos absolutely fascinating.
Then again, I've never been one to be able to fall asleep listening to a podcast either. If I need a suitably innoffensive background noise to sleep to, classical music or jazz usually is just the ticket.
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It doesn't matter the topic, someone talking to me while I'm trying to sleep is not something I'd ever want. Whatever works though.
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Yeah, I can't fall asleep to a new, interesting video or podcast. An old, interesting rerun? I can do that.
I can't fall asleep to music. Ironically, I end up thinking about it too much. White noise helps, but is not consistent. I found a few years ago that re-listening to, f'rinstance, a historical podcast series works for me. I set the timer for 30 minutes, and I'm usually asleep in 15 minutes. If I'm not asleep after 30, I get up for a bit to reset myself.
Do you set a timer or just let it run?
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The absolute best is [1]Parallax Nick [youtube.com]. He talks more about the history of astronomy and other science than latest developments, does EXTENSIVE research, has a dry sense of humor, and is a very... charmingly amateur video editor.
Science and astronomy clickbait has gotten completely out of control. If a channel doesn't have real live person on screen, I'm immediately suspicious, unless they have a channel history going back at least four years predating public LLM access. Viewer counts don't help because the dum
[1] https://www.youtube.com/@parallaxnick637
Captain Obvious Says (Score:5, Interesting)
If you leave YouTube on autoplay then you are getting what you asked for. It's been a couple years since YT abandoned the 10-15 minute video in favor of ADHD-fueled shorts and useless people talking for hours about nothing. That AI is taking over the hours long videos is an obvious outcome.
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True dat.
The good lord giveth... (Score:5, Insightful)
For a while you could be forgiven for claiming that the internet gave us all of the knowledge of the world at our fingertips. It was close enough to forgive the hyperbole. Then we leapfrogged that, and all of the knowledge if the world is being invalidated and dismantled.
I thought the dystopia would arise from many places, but I didn't foresee the mass destruction of our thought capacity and our collective descent into stupidity. This was predicted as far back as the advent of one way consumption - radio and TV in particular. I'll be damned... they were right.
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Books are also technically one-way consumption, and there were similar concerns about reading novels for entertainment in maybe the 1800s or something. But I get your point.
I do value places on the internet that allow for two-way communication, like this site. One of the great things about parts of the internet.
The knowledge is still available if you search in the right places. I've learned all sorts of stuff about electronics by reading online, both for work and hobby projects. For some topics though,
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You are assuming there is something inherent underlying the effect, as opposed to it being done deliberately. And our "thought capacity" is not being destroyed. Collective stupidity, maybe, or perhaps it is just easier to see it now than before.
People are trying to make a quick buck with AI before the opportunity is gone.
Re:The good lord giveth... (Score:4, Insightful)
I would disagree. I think there has been a sharp degradation in the quality of thought on many fronts, including the ability to concentrate (or even just pay attention) for extended periods. I think critical thinking is on the decline just when we need it the most. And because of the way the media has played out, we've been forced into our corners without knowing it's happening. And just ask any experienced teacher what they've seen in the last twenty years from their students. Not just in basic literacy but across the board.
I think on average we are indeed regressing. The AI videos are just one little marker of it. I call it the Blinkist Effect. People can't be bothered to read a whole thought, so they opt for the distilled version so they can sound smart while still not getting it.
Historically inaccurate and weirdly depressing (Score:3)
I see a common theme in these AI history slop videos, they love to talk about bad things, horrible conditions, diseases, and all the ways you could die. They don't spend much time talking about great achievements, and hardly talk about positive things at all, not really something I'd like to fall asleep to.
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To be fair, that is a lot more of history that was horrible than that was extraordinarily pleasant. Even more of it, of course, was pleasantly boring, to those living through it.
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Most of history just cycles from war, to war, to war. That does seem to be disappointing. I honestly thought that with the internet, that the populace would choose: "boring", and vote out the ones who wanted more war.
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Uuuuhuuu....You're taking "reported history" as "history". Most history was boring, and thus not reported. For reporting people either edit for political purposes or for the adrenaline rush. People don't like watching/playing boring stuff...but they most try to make their lives as boring as possible, avoiding dangerous situations. Fake excitement is sought after by people, like roller coaster rides, games, etc., but only because the danger is fake. (Yeah, there are exceptions, but most people shun real
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A Country, by the People, and for the People, seems exciting to me. "There is nothing to fear, but fear itself", seems exciting for me. A Country that can advance Civilization to a "Star Trek" type of Utopia seems exciting to me.
It won't be long until history is obliterated (Score:5, Insightful)
There are various genres where this is happening, especially in sports history. They are full of errors, but from the comments it's obvious that not many people realize that, nor do they realize these are AI-generated. These videos are so easy to make that soon factual history on youtube will be lost in the noise.
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Nonsense. We pay for this bullshit with those stupid ads. The least they could do is remove this crap from suggested videos and autoplay.
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It will be interesting when we hit the inflection point where the video content is such garbage that people don't watch the ads and the whole tower crumbles to ash.
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And that's exactly how things should work.
When the Crap Quotient gets high enough, people will migrate to better quality stuff. There may, god forbid, be a COST involved!
Of course, there will always be some who are too cheap or too lazy to seek out the higher quality stuff. How much sympathy are we supposed to have for those people?
And of course, there will be those who express great concern about the poor, downtrodden masses who, sadly and with great tragedy, are unable to afford to pay to watch high quali
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> It will be interesting when we hit the inflection point where the video content is such garbage that people don't watch the ads and the whole tower crumbles to ash.
Bring it on.
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Google removing stuff that drives engagement? Hah, that's a good one! I'm convinced they keep the bulk of the shit that gets recommended in the algorithm because rage bait works just as well at driving up clicks as content that's genuinely relevant.
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Oh please. They can't be that stupid if you're willing to watch them....and to watch crap, at that!
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Youtube is not free. Ads or subscription, but not free.
Re:Oh no!! (Score:4, Informative)
I pay for youtube premium, does that mean I should be entitled to better content?
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Youtube was always going to hell, but Alphabet accelerated that to lightspeed with their insane monitization schemes. You can't say "suicide," you have to say "self-deleted" or something. You can't say "rape," you have to sanitize that. You can't say "sex," you have to bleep it out. This goes on and on and on. It's to the point that even political commentary is damned near unwatchable because of the censorship. Google redacted their "don't be evil" slogan almost a decade ago, and it really shows.
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> Google redacted their "don't be evil" slogan almost a decade ago, and it really shows.
Youtube is easy enough to live without, but it's hard to ditch Google entirely because they are so entrenched in mobile phones. It's damn hard to find a 4G phone that isn't tied to Android or Apple.
Re:Oh no!! (Score:4, Insightful)
There's always a fucking bootlicking turd in the comments and here we have one.
Yes, it's legitimate to complain about things that are shit, whether we pay for them or not, especially if that shit gets in the way of better quality stuff.
So you can fuck right off with your whinge.
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This is not pearl clutching. The Boring series is AI, which means it scrapes or plagiarizes its content. Second, Its creators, or better, its prompters, cannot possibly be experts in the many fields it covers (from Catherine the Great - as The Boring Historian - to comet 3I/Atlas - as the Sleepy Astronomer), and thus they poison the well and contribute to the enshitification of everything. If you think all real knowledge should be paid for, then you should read about the life of Euclid or Socrates.
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Most people in society can go to a public library and access all kinds of real knowledge for absolutely free.
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And yet here you are spreading your pearls of wisdom for free on the Internets
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I'm a generous guy.
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Interesting that you think the concern is what people get for free. You can't imagine that anyone is concerned with the effect on society because you aren't.
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Not really. I have no problem imaging that people are concerned with all manner of stupid shit.
Hey, it's in our nature (Score:2)
How else the human population can be regulated if not by ourselves? This civilisation too has to come down eventually.
TFS almost put me to sleep (Score:3)
So, the article's author is basically saying they went looking for something dumb (but not too dumb ) to fall asleep to on YouTube, but thanks to AI there's not much of a line between dumb and too dumb anymore?
If that's not textbook first world problem, I don't know what is. Just go buy a sound machine or something and call it a night.
Uncanny valley is irritating not horrifying (Score:2)
It's extremely irritating to watch these movies. I watched a movie of a porcupine doing something amazing and thought, "Wow, I didn't know a porcupine can do that!" then I realized it wasn't real, and was extremely irritated. You spend time watching them before realizing they aren't real.
I always thought the uncanny valley would be spooky, ineffably unnerving, chilling your spine. I had stopped believing that it existed, because humanoid robots looked ok without alarming me.
But no, the uncanny valley ex
You know no matter how bad it is (Score:1)
It is still going to be better than Prager u and we're teaching that shit to kids in grade school now.
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Lotta Prager U fans here. Explains the quality of the discourse.
Friends of Privacy (Score:2)
Anyone remember "Friends of Privacy" from Rainbows End? The idea was that people would spam the internet with loads of junk and conflicting "facts" tied to their name, so that googling their name to learn anything about them, was useless.
Now I see the idea has generalized. I wonder if "Friends of the Fire of Alexandria" would be a good name.
Music is no different (Score:2)
There are hundreds of auto-generated music channels on YouTube. Every one of them is utterly soulless. Even better if you leave a comment regardless of how negative it may be they will like your comment and give it a heart.
Just remeniscing.. Four Channels and a common.. (Score:2)
Four channels and a common history. ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS. That is all there was back in the day. The newspapers all echoed or disputed what the stations said as the papers wished. There was a reliable, common source of information and entertainment for all Americans to see. There was a common way to spark a conversation with most people. Like: hey did you catch "XX or YY show yesterday"? I'm not sure if the term: "water cooler conversation" even applies anymore, but I remember, and I think that wa
Play from History (Score:2)
no pun intended...
* start your video for a few seconds
* go to the you tab with history
* click the video (in the leftmost position)
It will stop at the end of that video because it doesn't think it's on a playlist or anything.
Everything else seems to autoplay on mobile despite whatever settings.
Or use SmartTubeNext if you are using AndroidTV which is infinitely configurable.
Re: (Score:2)
On IOS, I click on the vid screen (not in full screen mode) to show the overlay, and one of the icons displayed is the toggle for autoplay (along with CC and Options).
As opposed to which videos? (Score:1)
I loved Kings and Generals until I watched a Yale lecture series that said ideas claiming the Khazars became Jewish were nonsense. Turns out every religion has tried to claim them. As if history claims need some kind of peer review system.
Also include partially generated slop (Score:2)
The infographics channel is slickly animated. But I unsubscribed when it showed the mechanics of the Little Boy bomb used on Hiroshima as a uranium slug shot into rings at the nose of the bomb. This was debunked a long long time ago (by a truck driver!). Cursory research would reveal this. They didn't bother. Probably they used AI in their research, which would have been overselective of the older, predominant schemata.
Need 3rd party validation (Score:1)
Need the sort of attestation something like a union or the screen actors guild (SAG) provides and a way to only see that content. Maybe call it the independent media creators consortium (imcc)? Low dues, but you end up with a key you can use to sign each frame or audio file you create, so we know the source!
It's not just history videos (Score:5, Informative)
There are also tons of AI-generated, feel-good, tear-jerker, -type stories. Sometimes about famous people helping a sick kid or something. In most cases as near as I can tell these stories are completely fabricated.
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You can play a fun game with the AI Slop on Youtube: Just pick a random page of a thick old dictionary book, then move your finger until you reach a word you never read or heard of before. Then search on Youtube for this word. Very likely you will find at least one auto-generated Video on Youtube about whatever that word is, and often it is glorious nonsense with zero to ten views.
Re: It's not just history videos (Score:2)
So much âoeTop X thingsâ Itâ(TM)s genuinely infuriating how bad the internet is getting. Used to be able to find answers to questions, tutorials on almost any subject in seconds. Now you have to wade through all the shite to find one that just about answers your question. In a âoeget off my lawnâ moment I miss the old internet. Could almost trust things you found online or at the very least verify them easily.
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> So much ÃoeTop X thingsà ItÃ(TM)s genuinely infuriating how bad the internet is getting. Used to be able to find answers to questions, tutorials on almost any subject in seconds. Now you have to wade through all the shite to find one that just about answers your question. In a Ãoeget off my lawnà moment I miss the old internet. Could almost trust things you found online or at the very least verify them easily.
Luckily, 95% of the AI slop videos are easily detected - the thumbnail alm
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These are fucking terrible. They've also taken over astronomy, under various names.
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Yep. The only use I see for this is if somebody with no actual understanding of reality wants their views reinforced. Pretty repulsive.
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To make it worse, they run PragerU ads that go on and on, spewing their twisted view of the world into the sleeping viewer's dreams