Internet Studio USC

Among the millions of algorithmically-generated videos on YouTube attempting to hack keyword searches, autoplay rankings, and human cognition, a very sizeable number are aimed at children, playing on common YouTube tropes such as nursery rhymes, surprise eggs, learning colours and popular songs and characters.

A very significant number of these however are intentionally disturbing, segueing from standard cartoon fare into nightmarish situations of pain, fear, violence and abuse, with a notable propensity for things which particularly trouble children: dentistry, blood, injections, insects, and evil clowns. The knock-off Peppa Pigs above are at the very mildest end of this spectrum.

What is particularly troubling is that while there is a connection here to the kind of algorithmic weirdness that youtube and other similar complex computational systems throw up with increasing regularity (the rape tshirts, the adult diaper phone cases), this is not fully automated, random, or accidental, but a deliberate, intentional attempt to terrorise and traumatise children, performed on a massive scale, using Youtube and its algorithms as its attack vector.

References, in ascending order of disturbingness:

YouTube has a fake Peppa Pig problem - The Outline

Disturbing, fake YouTube shows fool kids for more clicks - Engadget

On YouTube Kids, Startling Videos Slip Past Filters - New York Times

Saudi Arabia grants citizenship to robot Sophia | News | DW | 28.10.2017

Saudi Arabia granted citizenship to a humanoid robot, it announced at an innovation conference in Riyadh this week. It claims to be the first nation to bestow citizenship upon a robot.

Sophia was built by the Hong Kong-based company Hanson Robotics in 2015. The inventor David Hanson claims that the robot is imbued with artificial intelligence and can recognize faces. The robot’s silicon face can reportedly mimic 62 human facial expressions.

Hanson is evidently proud of his robot creation’s looks, as he rather lecherously described Sophia on his website: “Porcelain skin, a slender nose, high cheekbones, an intriguing smile and deeply expressive eyes,” the website gushes. She was supposedly modeled on the late actress Audrey Hepburn.

Saudi citizens are entitled to generous sums each year as part of the kingdom’s substantial oil revenues. Citizenship is rarely granted to foreigners, and is most notably withheld from poorly treated migrant laborers.