AI-generated content has started to spread rapidly, and this time it has made its way into the music recommendations of YouTube users, which has displeased a lot of paying subscribers. A number of users on Reddit and other forums have complained that they are seeing a lot of AI-generated music recommendations, with the usual recommendation methods like clicking on ‘I am not interested’ or thumbing down the track making no difference to the recommendations.
“Opened YTM today and six out of ten new recommendations were AI slop. The other day every other song in my auto-generated playlist was AI slop. Clicking ‘I’m not interested’ nor thumbing them down really makes no difference as it only applies to this one specific song, not the ‘artist’,” wrote one user on Reddit.
Several users in the comment section mention that the same kind of ‘slop’ is also creeping into their feeds, an issue that seems to be especially bugging YouTube Music users.
“I listen to a lot of R&B and there’s a lot of slop there. Disliking the song does nothing because they’ll keep recommending the same AI accounts no matter how many of their songs I dislike. We need an option to block accounts,” noted one user.
“they’re terrible, and YouTube is terrible for their complicity,” added another user.
Meanwhile, some users say that the issue is not limited to YouTube Music and is also permeating other music streaming platforms like Spotify or Amazon Music.
With artificial intelligence systems allowing users to create content, and in this case music, in seconds, it is becoming almost impossible to discern it from content created by humans. While many users struggle with how to distinguish between real and AI-generated music, others are quick to figure out if a track is not created by a human. With multiple threads on Reddit, this does not seem to be an isolated issue either, and YouTube may have to take further steps to ensure that users’ listening experience remains relatively unhindered by AI-generated ‘slop’.
While the company would probably work on improving its detection and segregation of AI-generated content in the long term, users on Reddit have asked the streaming giant to return the block account option in order to avoid seeing content from accounts they suspect to be AI-generated.
How are users noticing if music is AI-generated?
Some users say they figure out if a track is generated by AI if the ‘band name seems generic’ or if the ‘cover art is suspicious’. Others say having generic songs with moderately processed vocals is also an indication.
“Humans do those as well, but the mid-generic humans usually don’t have production that sounds this polished unless they use AI to fix that,” explained one user.
“Any and all AI music, without exceptions, has signs of being generated: very weird vocals that a normal person wouldn’t normally sing that way,” explained another user.
