There’s a whole new way to get rich on the internet—at least according to a rush of YouTube tutorials touting the money to be made using AI to generate videos for kids. Searching for how to create kids content or channels on YouTube now pulls up tutorials offering roadmaps for creating simple animations in just a few hours. They advocate use of tools like ChatGPT, voice synthesis services ElevenLabs and Murf AI, and the generative AI features within Adobe Express to automate scripting as well as audio and video production. “IT’S NOT HARD,” reads one of the top results’ thumbnail images, while the title of another promises it is possible to generate a video with an original kids song “In Under 20 Minutes!” The virality fueled riches claimed to be on offer can be eye-popping. “$1.2 Million With AI Generated Videos for Kids?” one title suggests, while another proclaims “$50,000 a MONTH!” Because YouTube is the most dominant force in young children’s entertainment, if AI-generated kids videos gain even a fraction of the success suggested in the side-hustle tutorials, millions of kids will see them. Last year, the BBC investigated the rise of “bad science” videos targeting older children on YouTube and identified over 50 channels using AI to promote pseudoscience and conspiracy theories, often racking up millions of views. But animated videos targeting younger children have been largely unstudied. WIRED was able to identify several accounts that appear to be offering AI-generated content for kids, primarily by searching for relatively new channels posting a high volume of videos. Deepfake detection startup Reality Defender analyzed samples from several of these channels and found evidence that generative AI was part of the production pipeline. “Some of the videos we scanned have a mix of either likely generated scripts, likely generated voices, or a combination of the two, showing that generative-text-to-speech is increasingly more commonplace in YouTube videos now—even for children, apparently,” says Reality Defender CEO Ben Colman. One channel, Yes! Neo, has over 970,000 subscribers, and its videos regularly get over a million views. Since it launched in November 2023, it has regularly published a new video every few days, with titles like “Ouch! Baby Got a Boo Boo” and “Poo Poo Song.” (Poop is an enduring fascination of kids on YouTube and music streaming services.) Reality Defender analyzed the transcribed script from a sample video, “Caring for Injured Baby Dino,” and found it was 98 percent likely AI-generated. The channel Super Crazy Kids, produced by a company in Hyderabad, India, also appears to be incorporating AI tools into the production of its more recent animated videos. It has over 11 million subscribers. Reality Defender analyzed a sample video and found “synthetic voice snippets” present. (The video’s title is a garble of keywords: “Pig Finger Family Song Baby Nursery Rhymes Colorful Cars Colors for Kids 45 Mins Collection Video.”) The channel bills itself as educational and often labels its videos as ways to learn colors, shapes, and numbers.
