Cliff Tan at the 29th Annual Webby Awards in 2025.
Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images for The Webby Awards
Another YouTube creator is facing online backlash over the use of artificial intelligence.Cliff Tan, who runs a popular interior design YouTube channel called "Dear Modern" that has 2.4 million subscribers and a corresponding TikTok account with 3.6 million followers, posted a video on Monday in which he apologized for promoting an AI company."Yesterday I made a video on AI, and it disappointed many of you," Tan said in the video. "I'm really sorry about that."Tan's apology comes a week after Hank Green, one of the internet's most reliable content creators, apologized to fans for relying on AI "too heavily" when researching his videos. He later shared a new AI policy for his channel.In Tan's case, he posted a paid advertisement for a Chinese AI company called "Dreamina," which allows users to generate animated videos with written prompts. In the ad, Tan uploads hand-drawn sketches to the software before transforming them into an animated floor plan.Though Tan uses his own sketches as source material and says in the video that he doesn't "like AI" because "it makes you forget to use your brain," the video was quickly flooded with negative comments."No, Mr. Cliff. Please. Don't sell yourself to AI," one comment with 1,700 likes reads. Others criticized the "Dreamina" company itself, which is owned by ByteDance.
