Spend some time scrolling on social media these days and you are likely to notice more and more videos made with artificial intelligence. Many are funky or fantastical. Others are downright bizarre. Some are intentionally misleading.
Rapid advancements in AI have led to a proliferation across the internet of what critics are calling "AI slop," or short videos that are rapidly produced, often repetitive, and made using generative AI technology. Platforms are grappling with how to handle them.
"AI is really superpowering spam," said Jason Koebler, a co-founder of the tech news website 404Media who has been following the rise of AI slop. "The whole point is to hit the algorithm in some way — to basically win the algorithmic lottery, get people to like, comment, share, and hopefully, go very viral."
Koebler, of 404Media, said the high volume of mass-produced AI slop is crushing other creators — like artists or photographers who work without AI — by diverting attention away from them.
"I think that discoverability on the internet has already started to collapse," he said. "I think it becomes really hard to stand out when the primary arbiter of whether something is seen or not is an engagement algorithm."
In some cases, AI slop can be more than an annoyance. Some of it is straight-up misinformation, like fake clips of celebrities rescuing people from the Texas floods in July.
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