Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
- YouTube’s recommendation engine briefly promoted a video featuring an AI-generated NSFW thumbnail to a wide array of users, including minors and those searching for unrelated content.
- The video, titled “AFRICAN GIAT MAASAI,” reached 3.9 million views despite the actual 16-second clip containing no explicit content.
- The channel has since updated the thumbnail to an SFW version, but the incident raises concerns about AI-generated content and the recommendation algorithm.
YouTube’s new UI is driving many people nuts, but that’s not the only thing that is driving people crazy. As it turns out, YouTube briefly recommended a video with an AI-generated NSFW thumbnail to many users across various age groups, including those searching for unrelated terms.
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There are a ton of reports from users (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 — there are more, but you get the point) complaining about seeing this one specific video on their YouTube recommendation feed. The video is titled “AFRICAN GIAT MAASAI” and features an AI-generated image of a group of topless women.
The thumbnail is drawing criticism from users, as many consider it NSFW enough not to be recommended. Curiously, the 16-second video does not feature any NSFW content within itself. The channel, Afro Zulu, has used NSFW or NSFW-adjacent thumbnails in other videos too, and similarly, the actual videos do not contain any such elements.
It appears that the channel has either figured out how to game YouTube’s recommendation engine, or the recommendation engine itself had a momentary lapse, as it went on to recommend the video in random and unrelated searches, as well as to people across various age groups, allegedly including minors.
As of the time of writing, the channel has updated its thumbnail to an SFW version. Still, with 3.9 million views, the video has already reached a lot of people. I’ve checked the unrelated search terms that Redditors spotted the video on, and it is no longer recommended there. If you search for the video title, you will see the updated SFW thumbnail.
We’ve reached out to Google for comment on this issue. Hopefully, the company is able to get to the bottom of this and stop AI-generated slop, especially if it is NSFW, from appearing on everyone’s feed.
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