Low-quality ‘slop’ generated by AI is crowding out genuine humans across the internet, but instead of regulating it, platforms such as Facebook ar

AI-generated ‘slop’ is slowly killing the internet, so why is nobody trying to stop it?

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2025-01-10 12:30:05

Low-quality ‘slop’ generated by AI is crowding out genuine humans across the internet, but instead of regulating it, platforms such as Facebook are positively encouraging it. Where does this end?

H ow do you do, fellow humans? My name is Arwa and I am a genuine member of the species homo sapiens. We’re talking a 100% flesh-and-blood person operating in meatspace over here; I am absolutely not an AI-powered bot. I know, I know. That’s exactly what a bot would say, isn’t it? I guess you’re just going to have to trust me on this.

I’m taking great pains to point this out, by the way, because content created by real life human beings is becoming something of a novelty these days. The internet is rapidly being overtaken by AI slop. (It’s not clear who coined the phrase but “slop” is the advanced iteration of internet spam: low-quality text, videos and images generated by AI.) A recent analysis estimated that more than half of longer English-language posts on LinkedIn are AI-generated. Meanwhile, many news sites have covertly been experimenting with AI-generated content – bylined, in some cases, by AI-generated authors.

Slop is everywhere but Facebook is positively sloshing with weird AI-generated images, including strange depictions of Jesus made out of shrimps. Rather than trying to rid its platform of AI-generated content – much of which has been created by scammers trying to drive engagement for nefarious purposes – Facebook has embraced it. A study conducted last year by researchers out of Stanford and Georgetown found Facebook’s recommendation algorithms are boosting these AI-generated posts.