YouTube might be the king of streaming, but it's only because its user-generated content has made it so.
Yet, despite its creators making the website what it is, YouTube is consistently doing things that are genuine slaps in the face. Oftentimes, if it's not censoring its creators for socio-political reasons — something it's admittedly gotten better about since COVID — it's nuking the livelihoods of creators for reasons that are, frankly, ridiculous.
Perhaps, as of late, you've seen complaints on X of channels being demonetized or destroyed entirely by YouTube's AI monitoring system. The claim usually involves the excuse of "inauthentic content," which typically means the creator was using too much AI. The issue is that the creator may very well have not been using AI at all. It was a product of their own time and effort. Sadly, YouTube's AI can't tell the difference, and so many people lost their livelihoods because even the most advanced AI is still pretty dumb.
According to OutlierKit, YouTube has wiped 4.7 billion views from the platform and $9.8 million in revenue from creators.
Read: Who Is the King of Streaming? Data Suggests Something Surprising
Which makes this new decision from YouTube all the more puzzling.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, YouTube is now rolling out an AI-based content creation mechanism called "Remix," which will allow other users to take content on the site and "remix" it with AI:
In YouTube Shorts, a new “Remix” option will let users write a prompt to remix a creator’s video by changing its style or even adding themselves into the video, without changing the basic context of the video.
Remixes, of course, were an element of Sora, the OpenAI video app, in which users could take another creator’s video and prompt tweaks or changes to create a new version. Sora also had a feature called “Cameos” that let users upload their likenesses to be featured in videos.
So YouTube is buckling down on AI content, but is promoting the usage of AI to steal content from other creators, have other users make it their own, and release it?
To differentiate between the creator and the AI parasite, THR says YouTube will include a watermark that leads the viewer back to the original video, but regardless, I'm not sure how this doesn't exacerbate an issue the platform is already having.
As a creator myself, I often get comments in some of my videos that express displeasure at my having used AI to generate some images or video. The reason is that AI slop has become so common that even a whiff of AI gives many viewers a sense of fatigue. I don't completely disagree. While I do utilize AI to create some images, I've even gotten to a point where the kind of AI images I generate are effectively just rough pen sketches.
AI can sap creativity when you lean on it too hard, and that's one of the reasons people are so sick of it. It looks fake and soulless.
And judging by the ad YouTube released for the Remix product, that soullessness is going to reach a whole new level.
Announced today at #GoogleIO, check out new ways you can create and search on @youtube:
— Updates From YouTube (@UpdatesFromYT) May 19, 2026
💬Search complex questions using Ask YouTube, our new conversational search experience.
🔄Gemini Omni is coming to YouTube Shorts Remix and the YouTube Create app. Add yourself to your… pic.twitter.com/b8372ppI6W
My immediate prediction is that this isn't going to go over well at all. People who use the remix function will largely find themselves being ridiculed in the comments sections, their videos downvoted relentlessly if they're seen at all. I imagine most people will likely opt out if given the option, because no creator wants to just be raw footage for others to manipulate and use for their own benefit.
I know I certainly don't.
But the bottom line here is that I foresee this only deepening a war that's heating up between corporations and creators. Corporations can't stop unpacking the AI monster because investors are demanding it, and creators can't stop fighting it because if they do, then there won't be any more point to them. I don't think AI is going back in the box, but I think creators and viewers will ultimately be the ones who show corporations where the line is to be drawn.
Sadly, I think things are going to get worse before they get any better.
My advice? Support your creators as much as possible. Likes. Comments. Longer watch times. It all helps.
