A recent article on Wired.com exposes the dangers posed by a new wave of AI generated animated content to young viewers. Tutorials promoting the use of ChatGPT and audio-duplication services like ElevenLabs and Murf AI and Adobe Express’s AI features have made it easy for users to create fast and easy CoComelon rip-offs to lure young viewers.
These AI-generated animated videos have gone largely unstudied. According to Reality Defender CEO Ben Coleman, these videos use generated scripts voices or a combination of the two to attract audiences. A site such as Yes! Neo (which feature videos such as “Ouch! Baby Got a Boo Boo” and “Poo Poo Song”) have over 970,000, while Hyderabad-based Super Crazy Kids boasts over 11 million subscribers. Most of these sites use key words that target young viewers and bill themselves as educational resources to teach kids about colors, shapes and numbers.
Among the article’s key points:
- Parents may not recognize that these copycat animation channels are offering AI-generated content because they look and sound similar to CG-animated kiddie hits like CoComelon.
- YouTube will be introducing new policies for AI-generated content. They will not be restricting content, and they’ll rely on voluntary disclosure by content creators. Company spokesperson Elena Hernandez told Wired, “YouTube will soon be introducing content labels and disclosure requirements for creators who upload content that contains realistic altered or synthetic material, including content geared toward kids and families.”
- The biggest concern seems to be that these AI-generated videos are not created to really have positive impact on young viewers. They are done only to generate clicks and revenue for the content creators. There are no organizations checking them to make sure they’re actually offering educational content, and some parents are not smart enough to discern what’s legit and what’s flashy, colorful garbage disguised as children’s shows.
- Some of the content use familiar characters like Frozen’s Elsa, Peppa Pig and SpongeBob SquarePants to lure children who are already know and love the franchises and use them to provide material that is definitely not suitable for kids. The article points to an episode of an AI-generated knockoff of Spongebob SquarePants called AI Sponge, for example, in which SpongeBob teaches Patrick how to shave his testicles!
- According to neuroscientist Erik Hoel, who watched the tutorials and then went on to sample many of these brave new kiddie shows, “All around the nation there are toddlers plunked down in front of iPads being subjected to synthetic runoff, deprived of human contact even in the media they consume. There’s no other word but dystopian.”
- For now, the best way to stop the possible harm caused by these rip-off toons is for parents to educate themselves so they can recognized them and stop their children from consuming them.
You can read the full article here.
