Podcast

OpenAI's Fog of War + Betting on Iran + Hard Fork Review of Slop

Hard Fork

Last highlighted March 6, 2026 Source ↗ ← All highlights

OpenAI’s Contract Leak Forced Rapid Damage Control
- OpenAI released portions of its Pentagon contract then backtracked, admitting the rollout looked sloppy and opportunistic.
- Sam Altman later amended the deal to explicitly ban domestic surveillance uses, showing damage control under employee and public pressure. Transcript: Kevin Roose Since Sam Altman announced last Friday that OpenAI had arrived at an agreement with the Pentagon, we have learned a little bit more about that agreement. As a reminder, according to Sam Altman, this agreement did include some prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and autonomous weapons systems, basically the same two red lines That Anthropic had set out that were causing them so much trouble with the Pentagon. And I think it’s fair to say, like, this provoked one of the biggest backlashes in that company’s history. Casey Newton It really did. We’ve seen it across social media. Many sort of top-up voted posts on OpenAI-related subreddits have been condemning this move. OpenAI has been scrambling to try to rebuild trust. But at the end of the day, Kevin, I think both the Pentagon and the OpenAI are saying to the public, you’re just going to have to trust us. And the public is saying, well, we don’t. Right. Kevin Roose So there’s been a lot of people canceling their ChatGPT subscriptions and switching over to Claude as a result of all of this, people who don’t agree with the Trump administration or The stance that the Pentagon has taken here. And presumably because they’re seeing some, you know, some pain in the cancellations department, as well as just a general feeling that this narrative is not going well for them, Sam Altman has been doing some damage control. So on Saturday, he hopped on X to talk about this and answer questions about the Pentagon deal, along with two other employees. And these questions were sort of the kinds of things you’d expect. You know, people asking, what did you guys agree to that Anthropic didn’t? Where are your red lines? Who’s going to be making the kinds of hard decisions during something like a war about how these models can and can’t be used? What about this domestic mass surveillance thing? So I think he answered some of these questions, but really the thing that they did was also to release the language of this contract that had been in dispute, that had been the subject Of so much speculation. Casey Newton Well they released what they called the relevant portion of the contract, but then we would see later commentary from experts in government procurement that said, essentially, look, Until we see the entire contract, it’s just very difficult for us to take at face value the idea that this is the only relevant language here. Right. Kevin Roose So they did not release the whole contract, but they did release some relevant language from this contract with the Pentagon in a blog post. Then on Monday, Sam admitted that he made a mistake. He said we shouldn’t have rushed to get this out on Friday. He also added that it looked opportunistic and sloppy. Or slop-per to point (Time 0:03:14)
Core Engineers Hold Real Leverage At OpenAI
- OpenAI employees publicly criticized the Pentagon deal and a senior research VP, Max Schwarzer, left for Anthropic.
- Employee unrest highlights that elite technical staff retain leverage because their skills are hard to replace. Transcript: Casey Newton Spilled over onto X, where you had some employees saying essentially that they didn’t trust their leadership Either an employee named Leo Gao called the contract language window Dressing and pointed out that it still seems to give the Pentagon control over when to deploy autonomous weapons and just doesn’t do much to address some of the other loopholes. And then maybe more dramatically, Kevin, on Tuesday, Max Schwarzer, who was the post-training lead for OpenAI, a vice president of research at the company, announced that he was leaving. And in his ex-post, while he was pretty vague, suggested that this was an important time and that he had come to really respect Anthropics’ values. And so he said he’s going over to work there. Kevin Roose Yeah. So what’s your take on how the damage control is going for OpenAI? Do you think they have warded off the most heated criticism or are people still really mad? Casey Newton I do not think that they have stemmed the tide. I think they put a lot of effort into changing the narrative here. When I saw that they were doing that XAMA, that they had put up a blog post, that they were quoting at least some of the contract language, I thought, these guys are really going for it. That also told me that they were really scared. But here’s the thing to remember, Kevin, most Americans just don’t like AI very much. They did it in the first place. They didn’t like it for all the normal reasons of, well, my social media feed is filling up with slop, and my manager’s telling me I have to use it every day or I’m going to get fired. When you add into that mix, it’s potentially also going to be used by your own government to spy against you or maybe kill you with a murder bot. Of course, Americans are going to say, well, this fricking sucks, right? So I think this was kind of the strategic miscalculation that Sam Altman made was that, at least according to him, he thought he was going to get into this dispute and sort of be able to Deescalate it and sort of come in as the white knight and save the AI industry from the overreach of the US government. And what he found out instead is they’re still, they’re kind of holding the bag of all of the discontent that the Pentagon whipped up with this forced policy change. Kevin Roose Yeah, it’s really interesting to me because I think my assumption had been that we were sort of over the era of like worker empowerment in Silicon Valley, right? Like years ago, sort of pre-COVID, we had all these like Google walkouts and all these employee protests over these military contracts. And I think a lot of CEOs and leaders at these companies sort of said, we’re not doing that again. Like we’re not going to give our employees veto power over the deals that we make or the contracts we sign. And it suggests to me what is going on at OpenAI right now that at least for them in their specific case, where you do have, you know, this staff of elite technical talent that are not easily Replaceable, there aren’t that many people who know how to like build and train these models, you actually do need to keep them happy. And so those people, maybe only those people have significant leverage still. Yeah. Casey Newton Let me make a sort of sweeping generalization, right? Like I think there’s sort of like two major camps at OpenAI. One are the camp that have sort of been there for, you know, let’s say three plus years that are the real experts that you just mentioned that have this kind of critical knowledge for how To build next generation frontier systems that almost nobody else in the world has. And those people tend to just really care a lot about how the technology is used. These are people who joined OpenAI in part because it was a nonprofit, right? And there is a solid core of those folks who are still working there. And then there’s a group at OpenAI that I’m just going to call the meta people. The people that came over from meta a little bit more recently that are maybe a little bit more flexible in what they’re willing to see their company do. And I don’t think that they’re going to raise a big stink about this. The problem if you’re open AI leadership is you actually need that original core, right? If you’re going to build a GPT six and seven that is going to blow everybody’s minds, those are the people you’re going to need. And so, yes, almost everything that we have seen over the past few days that they tried to do damage control is aimed at those people. (Time 0:07:40)
Anthropic’s Growth Amid Geopolitical Risk
- Anthropic is simultaneously facing a Pentagon supply-chain designation and surging enterprise adoption of Claude code.
- Bloomberg reported Anthropic’s annualized revenue jumping toward $20 billion, demonstrating explosive commercial growth amid political risk. Transcript: Kevin Roose Printing money, in two words. Casey Newton I would say, well, I mean, you know, I wrote this in my newsletter this week, Kevin, but has an American technology company ever had such a good week and such a bad week at the same time? Explain. Well, so on the bad side, obviously they’re in a very heated fight with the Pentagon that continues, by the way. It seems like there is still some risk that perhaps the president will try to invoke the Defense Production Act to try to compel Anthropic to make the version of Claude that it does not Want to make that would sort of do its bidding. And it seems also that this supply chain designation risk is now official. We learned on Thursday that the Pentagon sent a formal letter to Anthropic. So if nothing else, this is going to result in a long and costly legal battle as Anthropic tries to ensure that American companies can still use it for non-military purposes. Right. So there is actually an existential threat to the company that is buried somewhere inside there. And it is by no means over. Right. But on the good side… On the good side, Bloomberg reported this week that Anthropic is on track to hit $20 billion in annualized revenue. At the start of 2025, Kevin, they were on pace to earn about $1 billion in annualized revenue. So this company has 20x’d over the past year. They were on pace to make about $9 billion by the end of 2025. So it has doubled in barely over two months, which speaks to the rise of Claude code, right? And the overwhelming adoption of Claude in the enterprise. (Time 0:11:34)
Nationalization Risk Grows With AI’s Strategic Value
- There is credible risk the US could seek tighter control or even nationalize leading AI capabilities as systems become strategically decisive.
- Companies face a trade-off: work with government for cover or avoid deals to reduce exposure to coercion. Transcript: Kevin Roose There’s been a debate happening on social media about this idea that if we are headed to a world with very powerful AI systems in it, as Dario Amade calls it, a country of geniuses in her Data center, that eventually that will just not be allowed to happen inside a private corporation. That the U.S. Government, whether a year or two years or five years from now, at some point, will step in and say, hey, you guys built this really cool thing that’s really useful and has all these important Geopolitical and national security implications. We’re going to just take that now, and you work for us now. And I’m curious what you make of that as a possibility, because some people who I consider quite serious and credible have been talking about this threat of nationalization for several Casey Newton Years now. Yeah. If you go to the sort of nerdy AI conferences that Kevin and I do, this comes up a lot at the tabletop role-playing games that people do during lunch, right? Is that at some point, a government of one or more countries kind of steps in and takes over the AI lab. I understand in this moment that that feels like a kind of sci-fi scenario, right? Like most of the time when you’re using chat GPT, you probably don’t think this is a dangerous super weapon and we need to ensure that, you know, this is being controlled by the president. At the same time, we are now at war with Iran. We know that these systems are embedded in the like command and control operations of the military. And so, to some extent, they are already becoming weapons, right? So, if you say to me, do I think that once these systems become three, four, five, ten times more powerful, the government will want to take an interest in them and potentially oversee Their development and deployment, I absolutely believe that will happen. I see no reason why that would happen. And unfortunately, how that goes, I think, depends a lot on the quality of the government that is overseeing that AI, right? And like, what do they want to do? Do they want to use it to create opportunity and safety and democracy for all? Or do they want to, you know, mount an authoritarian takeover of the globe? Kevin Roose So if you are a leader at one of these companies, and you know that, you know, at least until 2028, we are likely to have sort of the same administration in power. If you believe that the technology is rapidly accelerating such that a year or two years or three years from now, we might have something like a superhuman country of geniuses in our Data center. What does that mean you should do? I mean, one thing that I’ve been thinking about is like, should these companies be doing deals with the government at all, right? If the lesson of the past couple of weeks is that the federal government is not a trustworthy counterparty in these negotiations and is going to insist on total control and obedience Or else they’re going to try to nuke your company. Like, I think a very rational response from these AI companies will be like, well, we’re just not going to make any more deals with you. You’re going to have to use some open source models for your state department and your military and your treasury, because it’s just too risky for us as a business risk. And you can’t be trusted with it. Casey Newton I could see why that may seem somewhat rational to them. But like, I don’t think that that is the tack that they’re going to take. I mean, even this week, after everything that has happened with Anthropik, Dario Amadei is still out there saying, we were very close to an agreement with the Pentagon. We liked working with the military. We want to work with the military again, right? So I think that’s very important to note. Like, Dario did not like throw up his middle fingers, like on his way out the door. He is still trying to reach some sort of agreement. And I think in part that likely is to avoid the exact sort of scenario that you are describing, right? (Time 0:17:24)
Consider Refusing Risky Government Contracts
- Firms may rationally refuse future government contracts to avoid political risk and preserve product safeguards.
- Casey notes leaders like Dario Amodei still seek deals to keep the government engaged without giving up control. Transcript: Kevin Roose If the lesson of the past couple of weeks is that the federal government is not a trustworthy counterparty in these negotiations and is going to insist on total control and obedience Or else they’re going to try to nuke your company. Like, I think a very rational response from these AI companies will be like, well, we’re just not going to make any more deals with you. You’re going to have to use some open source models for your state department and your military and your treasury, because it’s just too risky for us as a business risk. And you can’t be trusted with it. Casey Newton I could see why that may seem somewhat rational to them. But like, I don’t think that that is the tack that they’re going to take. I mean, even this week, after everything that has happened with Anthropik, Dario Amadei is still out there saying, we were very close to an agreement with the Pentagon. We liked working with the military. We want to work with the military again, right? So I think that’s very important to note. Like, Dario did not like throw up his middle fingers, like on his way out the door. He is still trying to reach some sort of agreement. (Time 0:19:58)
Prediction Markets Enter War Zone
- Prediction markets surged into the Iran conflict, with platforms allowing bets on strikes and leaders’ fates, sparking ethical and legal outcry.
- Kalshi voided a market about Khamenei’s fate and Polymarket permitted bet timing markets, exposing regulatory gaps. Transcript: Kevin Roose Okay, Casey, so the other big news from the past week is that the United States is now at war in Iran. And one angle that really has been sticking out to me about this is the role that prediction markets are playing in this conflict, because I think that is something that we truly have Not seen before. Casey Newton Yeah, it seems like every new war brings along some grim new technology. And I would say that prediction markets are maybe grim technology number one for this conflict in Iran. Kevin Roose Yes, it’s a grim technology already, even absent the war. And now just with the war, it has become even grimmer. And we’ve talked about prediction markets on the show. We talked about them way back in 2023 when they were sort of this new thing that was like kind of in this legal gray area that wasn’t really being done at any scale yet. It was sort of an interesting idea. Now, of course, you cannot walk down a street in a major American city without seeing one and probably multiple ads for prediction markets like Kalshi and Polly Market. Casey Newton Yeah, this sort of gambling mania that has taken over all media and advertising, you know, from DraftKings to FanDuel, has now extended even further into these prediction markets. Kevin Roose So both Polymarket and Kalshi, the two leading prediction markets platforms, took a lot of heat this week on bets they were allowing their users to make on questions related to Iran. So Kalshi, which is kind of the more regulated U.S.-based prediction markets company, does not allow bets on war or assassination, but it did allow the question Ali Khamenei out as Supreme leader, basically sort of as a kind of careful proxy for betting on the outcome of a war or a strike on Iran. Casey Newton Yeah. And out, I suppose, could have, you know, many meetings, you know, perhaps there would be a sort of gentle democratic revolution in Iran. But I’m going to assume that most of the people who were wagering on that one assumed that he was going to be killed in war. Yeah. Kevin Roose So people got really mad at Kalshi for allowing these bets on the fate of the Iranian leader. They also got mad when Kalshi sort of voided this market and said that it was going to reimburse anyone who may have lost money on this, basically make sure everyone ends up in the black. But people who were supposed to make a bunch of money because they correctly predicted the death of Khomeini were mad that they didn’t get paid out their expected winnings. So just a big cluster all around. And I just want to say, if you are one of the traders who did not get your expected winnings from the death of the Ayatollah, I just want to say, I don’t care. Casey Newton And it doesn’t matter. So Polymarket, the other sort of less regulated offshore crypto-based prediction market, was even more permissive. Kevin Roose They allowed people to bet on the dates of strikes on Iran and other details related to the war in Iran. Their policy was really like, imagine the worst thing you could do on our platform. You can do that. (Time 0:25:50)
Insider Bets Distort Prediction Market Signals
- Markets showed low probabilities for the Iran strike until insiders placed large bets shortly before the attack, suggesting insider trading and poor information aggregation.
- More than 150 accounts placed sizable bets shortly before a US strike, prompting investigations. Transcript: Kevin Roose Israel arrested a number of people who were accused of using classified information to bet on military operations on polymarkets. So this is already starting to happen. And I think this is why people like Senator Chris Murphy are so alarmed about this, not just because it’s sort of like gross and aesthetically offensive to have people betting on wars. Although it is. Although it is, but also because it could create direct incentives if you’re a member of the military and your commander gives you an order to go do an airstrike on an Iranian compound To log onto your phone and head over to one of the prediction markets platforms and say, you know what, I could make a couple grand off this. Casey Newton Yeah, that’s your little call sheet bonus. You know, this is not theoretical at all, Kevin. In fact, your colleague, Amy Fan, at The Times, wrote that it is relatively uncommon for someone to bet a significant sum of money that a U.S. Strike will happen within the next day. But last Friday, more than 150 accounts placed hundreds of bets of at least $1,000 correctly predicting that there would be an American airstrike on Iran by Saturday. Yeah. Kevin Roose So I think one of the interesting things here is like, I am not like a blanket opponent of prediction markets, right? I sort of bought some of the kind of theoretical arguments for why something like a prediction market could, for example, outperform political polls because it would incentivize People to like come up with really good polling data and like use that to trade on. And you could end up with kind of a better picture of a given election. Casey Newton Or people will like say what they really think because their money is at stake and they’re not just trying to like impress a pollster. Yes. Kevin Roose And you’ve actually had some of the people who are in charge of these prediction markets sort of talking about the fact that insider trading can be good because it can get the best information To the markets as quickly as possible and kind of like give people an unfiltered understanding of what the real insiders are thinking. Now, of course, officially, you are not supposed to be able to insider trade on these platforms, right? They all have policies against it. Kalshi says, you know, they’ve investigated people, that it is actually illegal per the CFTC, which is their main regulator, to place bets using insider information. But there are a couple problems with this. One is the CFTC is a tiny agency. It doesn’t have a huge team of enforcers going out to investigate what I assume must be hundreds or thousands of trades using inside information on their platform every day. It’s also not clear what is public information and what is private information. You know, there are certain types of information in the stock market that are considered material, non-public information that it is illegal to trade on. But it is also legal to, you know, fly a drone over an oil facility to see how their production is going or to park outside a store and see the foot traffic going in and out and use that to sort Of calculate how well their sales must be going. Casey Newton I find it suspicious how much you know about the insider trading rules. Kevin Roose I have to say, I didn’t know you had this much facility with the law here. I’m calling my lawyer. But of course, this is part of the appeal of prediction markets in general, is that they incentivize people with good information to trade on that information. Casey Newton Yes, and if you allow people to wager on almost anything, how are you ever possibly going to police the entire platform to understand who is insider trading and who isn’t? Yes. Kevin Roose So I think in this specific case of war, I think it’s very dangerous for some of the reasons that we’ve talked about. Not only do you have military officers and service people disclosing classified information in some cases to sort of make a little extra for themselves, but you also have just this Incredibly strange war innovation where you can just go on one of these platforms and try to make a bunch of money from something that involves a lot of devastation and destruction. Casey Newton You know, the other thing that comes to mind for me, Kevin, is that, you know, as you say, the prediction market backers, their argument is like, this just helps us understand the world Better, right? This is a new kind of information that helps us see more clearly. And yet, as I look across all of the trades that you just described, I don’t understand really what I was supposed to see more clearly, right? Like, maybe you get a, you know, a brief heads up about something horrible that is about to happen. Maybe that’s, you know, useful in at least some circumstances. But for the most part, I just don’t feel like we actually have a much better understanding of the world because all of these bets are happening. Kevin Roose Yeah, and I think in this specific case, that’s especially true because if you actually look at the markets that were being traded before this strike on Iran, the conventional wisdom Of the crowd was that this was not going to happen. It was a very low probability, I think something like 17% probability on one of these platforms an hour before the strikes. So these markets aren’t actually distributing the best possible information at all times. They’re just kind of like aggregating vibes until like someone with inside information shows up and like makes a fortune. Casey Newton Well, I think that’s exactly it. It isn’t as if these have been adopted by the mainstream and everybody’s placing these sort of casual bets. And now we have this like beautiful, perfect understanding of the world. What we have, as you say, is a bunch of vibes plus some insider trading. (Time 0:30:10)
Act Fast To Regulate Prediction Markets
- Lawmakers should act quickly to regulate prediction markets before they become entrenched interest groups with deep pockets.
- Casey warns delay lets platforms entrench, likening potential influence to the crypto industry’s lobbying power. Transcript: Casey Newton So you mentioned that some lawmakers have talked about introducing legislation. My experience is that that kind of legislation typically doesn’t go anywhere. What, if anything, do we know about what is going to happen as this war continues to unfold in Iran when it comes to these prediction markets? Kevin Roose I mean, I think the Trump administration is very unlikely to do anything to sort of stop the growth of prediction markets. We’ve already seen them signal via these sort of regulatory actions that they’ve dropped against polymarket, that they are not going to take a firm line against these prediction markets. Of the Trump family to their advisory boards. So I think all of these prediction markets are sort of becoming entangled with the administration in ways that are going to make it very hard for them to do anything. But I certainly expect like Democratic lawmakers to stand up and say like, what the hell are we enabling here? Why are we allowing people to bet on the assassination of world leaders or the outcomes of a war in Iran? This just feels all incredibly fraught to me. Casey Newton My fear is that we’re in a sort of time race where like if Democrats were able to like somehow advance some legislation, maybe they win some seats in the midterms, maybe they retake the Presidency, maybe sometime within the next few years, they could meaningfully rein these prediction markets in. I think, though, if they continue to grow, my fear is that they will become a massive entrenched interest group like the crypto world. And they will then lobby to ensure that Democrats and Republicans both feel like they have a vested interest in these things sticking around. So, you know, my fear is that if we’re to do anything about some of these excesses we’ve been talking about today, it needs to happen soon. Or otherwise, platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket might just have too much money for that to happen. Yeah, (Time 0:38:11)
Alphabet Videos Hide Short AI Clips As Hooks
- The hosts reviewed AI-generated children’s alphabet videos that morph goo into animals and use injections or transformations as engagement hooks.
- Kevin and Casey note creators stitch short AI clips into alphabets because current generators produce only seconds-long content. Transcript: Kevin Roose All right, what do we have up first? First is a video about the alphabet. Casey Newton Do you know the alphabet? You know, I keep meaning to learn it. Kevin Roose Okay, let’s see how the AI generated alphabet videos are doing. Yeah. Kids TV. ABC Farm Animals. Casey Newton So So this video depicts the alphabet showing a series of animals whose names begin with a letter. Then a hand holding, I guess, a tube of paint sort of squirts out a little dollop of gross goo that then transforms surreally into an animal while sort of demented slop children sing the Name of the animal in the background. Kevin Roose Yes. Like if you’ve ever seen the TV show Alex Mack from like the nineties on Nickelodeon, where she like sort of assembles herself out of goo on the floor, it’s sort of like that, but for animals. Casey Newton That one was a little before my time, I’m afraid. But I’ll research that one back in the archives. In any case, okay, yeah, very strange one. Let’s take a look at this next video, Kevin. What do we have now? I believe we’re going to see some animals appearing out of colorful clouds. Kevin Roose Why is the other animal a doctor? Why are they running toward the… Colorful clouds. Camera? Why is the kudu pink? Casey Newton And what is a kudu? I have to say, I’m a little older than the target age for these videos, but I’m learning things myself. This is for you. I’m learning. This video shows another series of animals each one connected to a letter of the alphabet but this one uses a trope of having this doctor figure inject uh these animals with color and The doctor is also an animal and the doctor is also an animal uh is this like anti-vax propaganda well the thing is like whoever is making the slop knows that needles are scary to children So this is effectively just an engagement hack right you know the kid is going to watch the injection because the kid is afraid of needles so this is just again this is just one of these Like little miniature insidious ways that these like slot makers grab the attention of kids is by like showing them something scary in order to hypnotize them into continuing to watch Kevin Roose The slot it does teach the valuable lesson that uh giving injections to children does result in them turning into pink kudos and running toward the camera so all children need to learn Casey Newton That lesson eventually all right this next one kevin shows uh animals turning into armored vehicles trucks and planes going to show once again that a key theme and slop for kids in 2026 Is the transformation of animals. Oh, wow. Kevin Roose We got sort of Mecca quail. Okay. Okay. I wonder if that’s a licensed use of the Thomas the Tank Engine IP. Okay. Unfortunately, that one slapped for me. My kid would be super into that, and I must never show him that. Casey Newton This one reminds me of cartoons that I watched as a kid, where there was a lot of transformers transforming. And so I could understand why a lot of little kids might like that one. But this is making me realize that another reason why slot makers love the alphabet is because they can just stitch together a bunch of very short clips. And of course, most of the AI video generators that we have in this moment can only generate clips of up to a few seconds. So the alphabet just becomes a perfect way to stitch together all of that into one piece that (Time 0:41:55)
AI Slop Dominates Kids’ Recommended Shorts
- In a 15-minute sampling Arieta Lajka found over 40% of recommended kids’ Shorts were AI-generated, often unlabeled and lower quality.
- She used a private session and a crawler to avoid algorithm influence and inspected channels and frame inconsistencies. Transcript: Kevin Roose And how are you determining that? Is there like a detection system that you’re plugging these things into? Yeah, the detection system is called looking at the videos. Well, no, I’m saying like if you have a video of like a, you know, an alpaca getting squeezed out of a paint tube, like that’s very clearly not photorealistic, but it could be made using Some like CGI software or something like that. How did you determine that this was AI? Arijeta Lajka Right. So I think some of these videos were a little bit more obvious, but we looked at them frame by frame and tried to look for inconsistencies. Like in some cases, the objects were just appearing in the background. There was text in the background that was distorted. If there was an animal in the background, it would morph into something else. Some of the videos were actually labeled as synthetic media, even though they were animated. And then we would also look at the YouTube channel and get a sense of like, okay, what sort of content have they been posting in the last few years? And even some of the channels that had been around, you know, before the last two years where this technology really improved, they were making very simple, low-quality animation That looked nothing like what they had been posting the last few months. Kevin Roose Now, Arietta, I have done a lot of reporting on YouTube, but it’s been a few years. What are their actual policies like today on this kind of content? (Time 0:52:27)
Labeling Policy Exists But Fails In Practice
- YouTube requires creators to label realistic synthetic media but enforcement is weak; many animated AI videos lack any synthetic label.
- Labels appear only inside video descriptions, and YouTube Kids disables comments, preventing parent signaling. Transcript: Arijeta Lajka Them a few channels as examples, and I asked them what their policy is around flagging AI content that’s being made for children, and that includes animated content. And they told me that content creators are required to label content that is realistic looking. In some cases, we saw that creators weren’t labeling the content. And I’m referring to videos of animals, you know, displaying behaviors that those animals don’t do, like elephants doing gymnastic maneuvers on a tightrope. Those videos, for example, are not labeled as synthetic media. Some creators were labeling the animated videos, but it’s not part of YouTube’s policy. So it’s really the burden is falling on parents, especially for parents who may not want their child to watch AI-generated media to determine, okay, what sort of video is this? And not only that, but you have to click through the video and then you see the synthetic media label. And when it comes to kids’ content on YouTube, YouTube doesn’t allow comments. (Time 0:53:40)
Short Hyperstimulating Clips May Overload Toddlers
- Experts worry rapid, high-intensity short-form AI content can overload attention systems of children under five and lacks narrative scaffolding.
- Arijeta notes these videos are full of extraneous effects, absent coherent beginning-middle-end, making comprehension and learning harder. Transcript: Arijeta Lajka So there’s a lot of factors to consider. So these videos contain extraneous effects. And we know that when videos contain all these bedazzling elements, kids can learn as well. They’re also devoid of a narrative arc, which is really beneficial for kids to watch content with the beginning, middle, and end with characters they can relate to, that they’re familiar With, watching content that uses short phrases that they can understand and doesn’t feature these abstract concepts. You know, worst case, a lot of these videos are fantastical and that could be cognitively overloading to the child. And when it comes to short form content, experts say for children under five, we know their attention systems are still developing. So it’s hard for them to follow rapid changes. (Time 0:56:08)
Limit Shorts And Curate Playlists For Kids
- Parents should set YouTube Shorts time limits and curate playlists because there is no filter to block AI-generated kids’ content currently.
- Arijeta notes YouTube announced parental controls for Shorts time limits in January as a partial mitigation. Transcript: Kevin Roose Ariadne, until the platforms like YouTube take more action on this, what can parents do in the short term? I mean, if you’re going to let your kid watch YouTube or YouTube kids, is there anything you can do to, like, toggle off the AI slop? Or do you just kind of have to make peace with it? Arijeta Lajka In terms of filtering it out, there isn’t an option to do that right now. In January, YouTube announced they were going to add some controls where parents can set time limits to YouTube shorts. We’re seeing a lot of this AI content in YouTube shorts, so that might be an option. (Time 1:02:14)