I was watching a YouTube video the other night and got four or five minutes into it before I realized it was AI slop.

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That scared me.

The video was about gardening.

It started with an old man talking in the first person about all he’s learned from a lifetime of growing things, over images of a convincing, lush garden. A person, who looked very much like your typical elderly Caucasian male, then appeared on screen and spoke into the camera – just like a million other YouTube videos I’ve watched over the years.

Two things finally clued me in to it being AI.

The man had his hands clasped in front of him and would regularly separate them to emphasize a point. After watching this a few times, I realized he was doing it mechanically – exactly the same way every time and with a pattern that........

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