Summary: As AI becomes dirt-cheap, more low-quality content will be dumped onto the internet. It fills our social media feeds, online forums, and even

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2024-10-23 11:00:07

Summary: As AI becomes dirt-cheap, more low-quality content will be dumped onto the internet. It fills our social media feeds, online forums, and even Wikipedia. Not only is ‘AI slop’ destined to pollute our online spaces, but according to researchers, it might even drive future AI models mad.

Have you heard of ‘AI slop’? It’s what spam was in the 90’s. An early champion of the term was developer Simon Willison, before it became mainstream. It describes the wave of low-quality AI-generated content that is currently flooding the web.

Don’t believe me? A recent pre-print paper found that at least 5% of new Wikipedia articles in August 2024 were AI generated, Facebook isn’t doing anything to stop AI generated images of Hurricane Helene, and Goodreads and Amazon are grappling with various AI generated book schemes scamming people into buying pulp. It’s only the tip of the iceberg.

This is not without consequence. As a writer and thinker, I cannot help but ask myself: what the Internet will look in 5 to 10 years? What will this amount to, if the problem is most likely only going to get worse?