Maybe not that interesting for everyone here, but I found no better community for this.
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This video is very probably also AI slop
I feel like the title doesn’t match the content.
The video gives an elaborate description on their evaluation of “AI” and it’s influence on the Internet at large. And then they conclude with “we’ll continue like before” directly contradicting the title.
Feels disingenuous. And ironic after they talked about their extensive investments into fact checking.
Ironic coming from one of the preeminent traditional slop channels
Their quality going down is probably what’s killing their channel. Every video is a merch ad, and the occasional shilling for the fossil fuel industry probably doesn’t help any.
These things are to be expected when you get bought by private equity, but let’s not be dishonest and say it’s all AI slop that’s killing them.
When did they shill for fossil fuel? Not saying it didn’t happen, just wondering
Idk about fossil fuels specifically but they been directly being sponsored by big companies and in return making propoganda for them for a few years now.
They accepted, and continue to accept a great amount of money from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. That foundation owns over $11 billion in investments in the fossil fuel industry, including coal-burning utility companies.
In return, there were quite a few videos that Kurzgesagt admits were funded directly by the Foundation, that exaggerate the positive influence corporations owned by the foundation have had. Videos which the CEO of Kurzgesagt has admitted they probably would not have made if the Foundation had not paid for them.
That’s really embarrassing that we as a community have chosen, of all possible creators, to deride Kurzgesagt for taking money from The Gates Foundation. It’s 0.05% of their holdings. ZERO POINT ZERO FIVE. Which, by the way, is down from 6% in the past after public concern — yes, a whopping 6%. Scourge of the earth, locked out of heaven: The Gates Foundation. Those computer nerds strike again. And we choose to punish a great content contributor for that. Shameful display of purity politics.
The problem is when the contributors influence what the videos say, in contradiction to data.
Kurzgesagt’s video on +2° / +3° / +4° over the global mean isn’t going to be so bad video was conspicuous to me, and is in fact, based on fossil-fuel industry rhetoric, rather than climatology estimations (which tell us over +1.5° is going to fuck us, and is).
Yeah. It seems like a ridiculous accusation to make. Bro couldn’t even answer the question about example of shilling so they had to pivot into the crime of taking money from a foundation to produce high quality educational content.
How dare they?
I’m trying to think of their ‘fossil fuel shilling’ video and only videos that come to mind are where they say we’re too entrenched in the fossil fuel industry to make a switch to renewable overnight. It’s just not realistic.
And other than fuel, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of products made from petroleum. Approximately 85% of petroleum is made into fuel. Rest is used to make things like pharma products, paint, pesticides, polymers etc.
$11 billion
0.05%
“A small loan of a million dollars.”
Does any of that matter in this situation, anyway? Exaggerating their content in exchange for money already places question on their reliability as an educational content creator.
I don’t think you understood what they’re saying. Try reading it again.
Hint: the investment of $11 billion refers to investment of Gates Foundation in fossil fuels.
Hint: the investment of $11 billion refers to investment of Gates Foundation in fossil fuels.
Well, considering these exact words were used:
That foundation owns over $11 billion in investments in the fossil fuel industry, including coal-burning utility companies.
What can I say but duh. If I misunderstood anything, it was the comment I replied to, which was unclear about the “0.05% down from 6%” detail, and seemed to be associating that with the $11 billion figure by context.
But hey, nice deflection, and super cool of you to be that rude about it, too.
These things are to be expected when you get bought by private equity,
Excuse me, what?
They are owned by private equity? It’s pretty common these days for the more popular YT channels. Veritasium, Astrum, Fireship, fern., and Hoog are some other examples. Basically, if it’s a popular YT channel, it’s either owned by PE, in negotiations to be acquired by PE, or pursued by a PE firm in the hopes that they can acquire it. Private equity is accelerating their acquisitions, actually, and they want to control everything that captures the attention of viewers.
Here’s a video that talks about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ-rRXWhElI
There’s an incredible amount of money in those offers. Years ago Linus Tech Tips got an offer of 100m, so I get why people take the money.
I mean, I would probably sell the channel myself. That’s a lifechanging amount of money. I would buy some land deep in the backcountry, build a little walled village, and invite my family and friends to come live there. Grow our own food, set up some solar panels and wind turbines, buy up plenty of guns and ammo, and see if we couldn’t hunker down and live out the ever more likely downfall of the American economy in relative peace.
What are Astrum, Fireship and Hoog?
Other YouTube channels? I said that.
Yes, and also I was able to extrapolate that much, but I was looking for some idea of what kind of content they provided.
That said, I can look them up; apologies for bothering you on the matter.
Anyone down voting this should be ashamed of themselves.
Like deeply and personally ashamed.
The type of shame that follows them for the rest their lives, because that’s how scummy you’d have to be in order downvote someone shining a light on how private equity is buying out major YouTube channels.
Something that I was entirely unaware of, and appreciate your comment regarding.
I get it. They like the channel, and don’t want to think that a channel they love could do something they don’t love. Or maybe some of them don’t see it as a bad thing in the first place.
Me, I’m the opposite. I want to know who owns the media I consume, because I want to know who might be influencing the things I see. It’s always better to have the whole truth, even if that truth hurts. It doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the channel still, it just means you’re better prepared to understand the context of anything that that channel might say. Even cold hard facts with empirical evidence can be propaganda, depending on how it’s presented.
And of course, the video was preempted by an AI slop ad of a talking monkey wearing a neck brace.
Use Firefox + uBlock Origin on desktop and on mobile. Only watch YouTube via Firefox. Never see these bullshit ads again.
Currently adblocking is winning the war of the technical evolution of control vs. resistance.
Shoutout to Revanced patcher if you’d like an app equivalent with the same level of customization
And VacuumTube for an app like experience on HTPC’s, linux based set top boxes, as well as MacOS and windows or linux based tablets.
Edit: added hyperlink to projects github page.
Sounds better than the fucking singing purple llama I get all the time ruining a song from Dirty Dancing by changing the ‘I’ to ‘AI’.
‘AI had the time of my life’ doesn’t even make sense!
!videos@lemmy.world is a good one for stuff like this. That community loves their work.
world no thank you
Boo!
Some of their videos are pretty good, but taking funding from billionaires is never a good look.
It’s definitely not only that.
I and, from what I’ve seen discussed here and elsewhere online, many other people have stopped watching the channel because of many valid reasons completely unrelated to AI. I haven’t watched a single one of their videos for years, something changed in their content and I just lost interest. Then there have been several controversial events throughout the years, both objective bad stuff and subjective things that made many loose interest and faith in their integrity. They definitely became one of the many channels that lost it’s way because of how big it got. The animations became too “perfect” in a weird way, they lost their personality and they also got scared of having real opinions so they started doing this “all sides” shit and that’s when I tapped out. I’ve tried to watch new videos from them about once every 6 months or so, but I can’t even make it past a minute without completely loosing interest.You didn’t even watch this video.
In that it’s mostly a merch ad hidden behind a clickbait title.
So I guess it’s a good test for that sort of “just read the headline” response.
It’s been a rough few days and I think I may be coming around. What hope is there to parse AI misinformation if people can’t parse a Reddit-like link aggregator?
I may be done with this place at this point. It’s just all bad. If not the whole Internet, certainly the whole of social media.
This is not an airport, you don’t have to announce your departure
I mean, I didn’t watch this video because I lost interest when the channel started getting really dark around 2020. I just needed a laugh during the pandemic. I didn’t need 4 videos in a row about the end of the world, then a few about the end of the universe, followed by a future civil war. It was too much.
Personally, I find videos about the end of the universe very humbling and comforting.
I think you might be referenced in this video 😉
This whole video felt like an advertisement to me. I’d already seen it twice, was it necessary to crosspost it again? You could at least have waited a couple of weeks before reposting the same content.
Kurzgesagt became (non AI) slop itself so im not surprised. All the videos of them that i have watched in the past few years were disappointments.
I mean, you’re petroleum industry apologists, so for a change I’m not that broken up.
Kurzgesagt? I didn’t know this, how come?
They have gotten money from Bill Gates foundation. Still its a pop sci YouTube and does a good job at it. Some say its spreading misinformation or that context is missing. I don’t really see malicious intentions. Expecting more of a pop sci publication is kind of absurd; take a real class and study if you want more.
An example:
While not wrong, this is now quite a bit dated. Kurzgesagt acknowledged being called out for it and addressed it via various channels. One of them here:
🚨 🚨 PURITY TEST INCOMING! 🚨 🚨
I feel like propping up the industry primarily responsible for one of the largest (if not the largest) crises in human history is an appropriate place to draw a line.
This really isn’t where we need to be wasting our time. See my other comment on the matter.
