It is late August in Atlanta, which means backpacks, air that could steam a dumpling, and somebody in my house asking for just one video before school. YouTube Kids is even running a back to school arts takeover right now, through September 7, with Ms. Rachel, the Met, and MoMA, plus a View and Do pitch that says kids should get off the couch and make something. I like that pitch. I also live with two actual children, Evan and Colin, so I know what happens after the nice video ends.
The feed does not stay at the museum.
In February, The New York Times reviewed more than 1,000 videos recommended to young children and found that YouTube’s algorithm was pushing bizarre, often nonsensical AI-generated clips from channels that claim to teach toddlers the alphabet and farm animals. The Times started with popular kids channels like CoComelon, Bluey, and Ms. Rachel, then scrolled Shorts. In one 15-minute session after CoComelon’s Wheels on the Bus, more than 40 percent of the videos that followed appeared to contain AI-generated visuals. One Old MacDonald remake had a horse with two arms and four legs hatching from an egg. If that is education, I am a Georgia peach.
YouTube does require labels for photorealistic AI. It does not require the same prominent treatment for animated AI, which is most of what gets dumped on little kids. In May, YouTube made those realistic labels easier to see and started auto-applying them when creators stay quiet. The company also said, in its own blog post, that a disclosure label does not change how a video is recommended or whether it is eligible to earn money. Mashable reported that the new labels do not even show up in the YouTube Kids app, and that auto detection still skips animated and highly stylized video.
So the thing that looks like a cartoon for babies is the thing least likely to get a warning. Cool, cool, cool.
In April, the children’s advocacy group Fairplay sent a letter to YouTube CEO Neal Mohan and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. It was signed by more than 200 organizations and experts, including pediatrician Dr. Jenny Radesky. They asked YouTube to label all AI content, keep it off YouTube Kids, stop recommending it to anyone under 18, and give parents a switch to turn it off. Radesky said YouTube rolled out Shorts with Made for Kids content without wondering what impact it would have on young viewers, and that AI slop then started competing for kids’ attention on those very feeds. YouTube told the Associated Press it has high standards for the content in YouTube Kids, including limiting AI-generated content in the app to a small set of high-quality channels, and that it is working on Kids labels.
Pediatricians are not asking parents to win a game of whack-a-mole. The American Academy of Pediatrics’ 2026 guidance, Digital Ecosystems, Children, and Adolescents, says many platforms are built to boost engagement and profit, not child health. The AAP’s 5 Cs are Child, Content, Calm, Crowding Out, and Communication. Content is the point. The AAP also tells industry to offer a way to turn off algorithmic feeds, or content that has not had a human look at it. Pew Research found that 85 percent of U.S. parents of kids 12 and under say their child watches YouTube, including about half who say it happens daily. That is a lot of little brains riding a recommendation engine.
I am not anti video. I am anti surprise horse embryo. In our house, the kids watch channels I picked. No Shorts conveyor belt. No up next from a robot that thinks a six-legged rooster is a lesson. If YouTube wants to put museums on the home screen for back to school, great. I will still decide what plays after.
Sources: The New York Times, Feb 26, 2026; YouTube blog on AI labels; Associated Press on Fairplay; Fairplay letter; Mashable; YouTube Kids back to school arts takeover; AAP 2026 media recommendations; Pew Research on kids and YouTube.