Babies are the latest target demographic for AI-generated slop on YouTube

There is a new grift in town, and it is entirely automated. Creators are now using AI to churn out endless streams of low-quality content and they have found the perfect, uncomplaining consumer. Babies.

A Bloomberg report highlights how it works and the dangers it poses. It all starts with a creator who asks a text bot to write simple, repetitive lyrics full of nonsense words. These are plugged into a separate AI video generator. Within minutes, a colourful fever dream of dancing animals and floating shapes is produced.

Monique Hinton, a creator with over a million followers, explicitly sells this as a way to “create freedom” in your life. She admits she only does about 5% of the work. The rest is handled by the machine.

AI slop is potentially damaging a child's brain

As for why the diaper-wearing demographic is being targeted, the answer is simple: They are watching.

According to fresh data from Pew Research, YouTube usage has jumped significantly for children under two years old since 2020. In fact, over 60% of American parents with a child that young say their kid watches the platform. Better yet for creators, this is an audience that cannot skip ads or complain about plot holes.

This is where the term “slop” comes in. It refers to mass-produced, low-effort AI content designed to game search engines and social media rather than offer value. And experts have warned it is potentially damaging for toddlers.

Rachel Franz from the advocacy group Fairplay told Bloomberg that a child’s brain is actively wiring itself to understand reality during these early years. If that wiring is built on hallucinated AI visuals where physics and logic don’t apply, it could impact how they understand the world.

On the YouTube side of things, a spokesperson claimed that mass-producing spam is penalised by their monetisation systems. But clearly, creators have found ways to work around it.

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So while YouTube figures out a way to solve this problem for good, it would help to reduce your child’s screen time as much as possible. Or better yet, bring it down to zero.