What does a baby head grafted on a palte of tacos, a crocodile half-formed out of moss, and a child with a full beard have in common? Two things: None of them exist, and your grandma probably scrolled past them all on her Facebook account this morning.
Generative AI images are all around us. Now, there’s a term to describe the worst of the worst: AI slop.
Here’s why AI slop took over the internet, why Facebook in particular has the biggest problem with the nonsense images, and why so many people are upset about it.
So, What Is AI Slop?
The term “AI slop” largely refers to images created with a free generative AI tool, often the easily accessable Bing AI Image Creator. The slop tends to come with the harsh-lit, overly finely-detailed style that often give an image away as AI-created. Worse, it always features the warped dimensions or impossibly dispreportionate sizes that are an obvious sign that the image wasn’t created by a human.
It’s low effort. It’s low quality. It’s the latest reincarnation of sleazy pop-up ads or the physical junk mail that came before that.
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The exact type of low-energy AI image you’ll find on sites like Facebook can vary, but certain themes tend to emerge, like animals, babies, and common types of food. Many images will feature Jesus Christ himself, perhaps as part of an implicit appeal to prove one’s godliness through Facebook likes. Other images might include a “hidden” Jesus face.
Jesus again. But this time with turtles. You should really get that arm checked out, Lady. pic.twitter.com/YPRo6qZpcd
— Kerstin 🌿 (@kxs839) May 14, 2024
Interestingly enough, AI slop has almost single-handedly ended the fear of incredibly realistic deepfake scams plunging the world into chaos: AI slop is nowhere near realistic, and we’re still in chaos over it. AI never needed to be that convincing after all, it turns out.
Why Is AI Slop Huge on Facebook?
Facebook’s user demographic is aging: 45-65 year olds are the fastest growing chunk of monthly active users when broken down by age. They might be less prepared than younger generations for a sudden emergence of realistic images that aren’t real.
However, that’s not the real reason why Facebook is the main pigpen that AI slop winds up in. It turns out Meta is essentially paying people to post AI slop on its platform.
According to an investigation by 404 Media, Facebook’s “Creator Program Bonus” pays participants for viral posts. Influencers across locations including India, the Philippines, and Vietnam are turning to generative AI tools (mostly Bing AI Image Creator) to pump out potentially viral posts in order to cash in.
This is popular enough that some slop-posting influencers are even creating courses on YouTube or Telegram, covering how to create AI images and spreading the word even further. Prompts are copy-and-pasted, or are translated into English, all focusing on best-guess topics for engaging US audiences — which might explain why Jesus, pizzas, and hamburgers are frequent subjects.
Put that all together, and you have a recipe for incredibly odd, off-putting content that keeps getting just enough attention that Facebook will shell out a little money to encourage even more of it.
It extends beyond images, too. AI-generated music is taking over Spotify in a similar manner.
What’s So Bad About AI Slop?
Misinformation and confusion are the biggest problem here. It’s certainly true that AI slop isn’t exactly designed to stand up to scrutiny. But not only do most people rarely scrutinize everything they see online, but they shouldn’t have to, either.
Ultimately, lack of moderation and regulation is the larger problem. Giant social platforms like Facebook have admitted that they’re too big to moderate their content for years and years. Ironically, Facebook’s own algorithm — a different type of AI than the generative tools creating these images — can’t handle moderation. In 2017, they attempted to address the issue by hiring 3,000 editors. Eight years later, they’re still falling down on the job.
Another huge reason why so many people are upset about AI slop is the apparently inescapability of AI generated content today. Google now adds AI results to most searches, with no settings-page option to toggle it off. Yes, users can get rid of it by adding “-ai” to the end of their search, but this little-known trick is hardly a reasonable opt-out solution.
Basic human taste is another good reason to take a stand against AI slop. I mean, look at this:
I don’t know what’s happening here, but I’m scared of it. Source: Threads
The Downsides of Generative AI Go Beyond Slop
AI slop may well be the worst form of AI, but any generative AI tool has yet to overcome a handful of serious red flags, from its high toll on the environment to the copyright concerns that top AI leaders are still hoping to sweep under the rug.
Environmental Impact
Estimations of how much electricity AI uses vary widely, but there’s a general consensus that it’s a lot: One Atlantic article says one ChatGPT search might be equal in power to ten non-AI Google searches, while another report discussing Google’s own AI program says it uses enough electricity in a single second to charge seven electric cars.
Just one Google AI search uses the same electricity that an LED lightbulb in your home needs to burn for a full hour. That’s upsetting to hear when all your Google searches are now AI-powered, with no “off” switch. It’s particularly upsetting when your last Google search was “when will climate change cause societal collapse?”
Potential Copyright and IP Violations
Generative AI needs huge amounts of data to train on, and the biggest models have allegedly trawled the internet to scoop up art, books, and YouTube videos. None of that intellectual property is acknowledged or compensated, despite arguably being reproduced through a type of lossy compression algorithm.
Granted, the questions surrounding the nature of intellectual property law have yet to be answered. As the Harvard Business Review puts it, “does copyright, patent, trademark infringement apply to AI creations? Is it clear who owns the content that generative AI platforms create for you, or your customers?”
One thing seems hard to deny, though: Generative AI models build their value on the hidden work of million of uncompensated creatives.
Poor Business Decisions
Finally, another big reason to question AI is just how useful the tool is for convincing executives and shareholders that they can adapt AI in order to lay off their human workforce without any downsides.
That would be logical, if AI actually could replace humans. However, the non-hyped perspective on AI is that generative AI can offer useful and tangible but not industry-shaking benefits, particularly when it comes to predictive analytics undertaken with the knowledge that AI is far from perfectly accurate.
In contrast, indescriminate use of AI leads to high-profile failures, like a recent movie trailer that included false AI-generated statements.
AI-driven layoffs will lead to a looser labor market, and they’ll make the company worse as well. But most execs won’t listen to that logic — we’ve actually known for decades that layoffs don’t boost stock prices, and that hasn’t stopped them, either.
The Wider World of Slop
Slop isn’t just AI. Any product that does the absolute bare minimum can be slop, and there are plenty to chose from.
The term has been used to refer to middling Netflix movies, clearly made with just enough care to keep viewers watching from a second screen, but not enough to make them actually good.
You might apply the term to uber-cheap Temu clothes and knick-knacks, too. These products won’t last long, but they’re easy in the budget. In the most obvious sign that selling cheap trinkets is increasingly popular, Amazon is moving into the low-price storefront to compete against Temu. According to a new scoop from The Information, Amazon is forcing merchants to sell items with steep caps on pricing, from $20 limits for sofas to $8 limits for jewelery.
Want to combat the slop-valanche? Save up your attention and dollars for the experiences and products that offer more than the minimum. For most of us, that might start with planning out how to spend less time on social media.
