As is the case with all good things, the first time I heard the ‘leak’ of Tyler, The Creator’s ‘Don’t Tap the Glass’ was on TikTok. A ‘club banger’ in the style of Avicii or even The Chainsmokers, it’s not only noticeably shallow, but very much unlike anything else by Tyler, The Creator. That’s because it’s not. Instead, it’s part of a breadth of YouTube videos marrying the clickbait stylings of old-school YouTube with the newfangled tools of generative AI. What a world we live in.
Unlike when a creator would say GTA V had leaked in 2010, only to show nothing to back up the claim, what makes this particular use of generative AI so effective is that it can pass the sniff test for some internet users.
Posted by user KLODJAN, the video titled ‘Tyler, The Creator – Don’t Tap The Glass! (Music Video)’ launched just before the release of Tyler, The Creator’s new EP and now has over 200,000 views.
This same user has been using this tactic for months now and has seen some pretty big results. A 54-second video titled ‘Sabrina Carpenter – Manchild (Music Video)’ cashed in on the hype of Sabrina Carpenter’s song of the same name and has since amassed over 100,000 views.
What makes this specific sound unique is its context collapse. It has found its way onto TikTok, where over 800 posts use it, with another 50+ posts using a different upload of the sound. As well as this, videos with over 100k likes are making fun of it. Like the Sabrina Carpenter AI music video, it’s a flash in the pan, but one that is getting some serious views.
YouTube put out a statement in 2023 on the use of AI in the music industry. In it, YouTube said it “will embrace it responsibly together with our music partners.” It claims it will support creators who use generative AI but will “empower creativity in a way that enhances our joint pursuit of responsible innovation.” These rather nebulous claims leave a lot of room for interpretation.
Clicking on KLODJAN’s channel, the videos are currently monetised. YouTube does pay creators for AI-generated videos (as long as they’re provably unique), but these videos being low quality, based on false premises, and going live without AI disclosures does suggest it won’t stay monetised for very long.
However, even if these channels lose monetisation, that doesn’t mean YouTube won’t put ads on the site; it just means creators are no longer incentivised with money to keep making them. Views may not always be monetisable, but subscribers are still a valuable asset for any channel. This is part of a broader trend happening on YouTube right now. Just looking for trailers for new games (like Elder Scrolls VI) or movies (like Avengers: Doomsday) shows a gulf of AI-generated trailers hogging up the search function.
I didn’t anticipate having to debunk my YouTube feed anytime I search for something new now, but alas, the ‘wonders’ of generative AI have made it so.
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