A YouTuber has revealed exactly how much money they're making from posting daily 'AI slop' videos and it's bonkers.
For years, content creators have found ways to cash in on YouTube's massive audience. But artificial intelligence is revolutionising how quick and easy it is to pump out viral content.
Whether you think AI-generated videos are creative genius or just mindless garbage, you can't deny that the content racks up tonnes of views.
Scroll through any social media platform these days and you'll inevitably stumble across some form of AI-enhanced content.
While some videos are whimsical and imaginative, others have pushed political propaganda, and plenty are intentionally designed to mislead viewers.
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But for creators willing to embrace this new frontier, the financial rewards can be staggering.
Mark Lawrence I Garilao, creator of FUNTASTIC YT, revealed he earned $9,000 in a single month producing AI-generated videos on YouTube.
The 21-year-old computer science student from the Philippines uploads one or two videos a day featuring a cartoon kitten and his father in completely nonsensical scenarios.
One video showing a kitten swimming in a pond filled with gummy bears has pulled in nearly two million views alone. Other clips feature the kitten riding blimps made of pancakes or driving cars made from cola.
Garilao's channel has amassed nearly 600,000 subscribers and accumulated almost 500 million total views.
According to Social Blade estimates, his annual earnings could range anywhere from $123,000 to an eye-watering $2 million.
But what's just as shocking is how little time it takes Garilao to create the videos.
According to the YouTuber, it takes Garilao one to two hours to create using tools like ChatGPT for dialogue, KlingAI for animation, and other editing software to pull it all together.
However, not everyone is in favour of this content move.
Garilao's success story is part of a much larger trend that critics have dubbed 'AI slop' - short, mass-produced clips created with generative AI that spread like wildfire across social platforms.
“AI is really superpowering spam,” said Jason Koebler from 404Media.
Similarly, Adam Bumas from the tech newsletter Garbage Day added: "I don't think this video exists for any creative, any expressive, any informational or educational reason. It's purely to be engaged with."
In response, YouTube has updated its policies to address 'inauthentic' content, while TikTok and Instagram have begun requiring labels on AI-generated posts. However, the increasing volume and rapid production of this content make any kind of regulation challenging.