Experts say the rise of synthetic media, deepfakes and repetitive AI text is creating confusion, misinformation and digital burnout.
The internet is no longer only about connecting thoughts, ideas, commerce and singles on dating sites.
Thanks to artificial intelligence (AI) and social media, it’s becoming a soup of rubbish content that experts say is quickly becoming a major headache for truth.
And it’s not just about fake news.
What is AI slop?
AI slop describes the flood of poor quality content produced by generative AI.
It can form part of blogs, social media posts, infographics, art and even music.
It is often repetitive, sometimes meaningless and often completely wrong; from the imaginations, or lack thereof, of the people inputting the prompts.
Yet it spreads quickly because it is cheap to make and easy to push into feeds and search engines.
Why low-quality AI content is harmful
Netnographer and online cultural expert Carmen Murray said this growing mass of digital fodder is more than just irritating.
It drowns out useful information, pushes false facts into circulation and chips away at trust in online spaces.
She said it is almost like a black hole of slop that buries genuine insight under mountains of algorithm friendly spam.
Globis Insights, a US-based online intelligence company, presented research that the chase for quick advertising revenue encourages creators to pump out search engine-optimised pages with no value.
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AI slop and its impact on work and creativity
Murray added the harder society pushes for rapid adoption of AI, the more slop is created.
“A recent Upwork study of over 2 500 workers showed that 77% said artificial intelligence has actually increased their workload, 71% said it is driving burnout and nearly one in three are ready to quit in the next six months,” she said.
Instead of easing pressure on people, it is adding to it. “People are spending more time fixing AI slop and trying to make it sound human and factual,” Murray said.
“The very thing that is supposed to make us faster and more efficient is, in some cases, doing the exact opposite.”
Different forms of AI slop
Different kinds of slop are becoming easier to spot.
There is the overload of synthetic media created by platforms like Midjourney or Chat GPT’s Dall E. Photorealistic pictures of events that never happened are passed off as fact and spread.
Then there is fantasy styled images and memes made only to spark engagement but without substance, said Murray.
“Text may be the most obvious,” she said. “Blogs, articles and posts that repeat the same phrases and add no new perspective are everywhere. Audio and video are also affected. Voice clones sound robotic and lack emotion.
“Deepfake clips of politicians or celebrities are being used to mislead. Even the music industry is caught up in it. Velvet Sundown, an indie band accused of being computer-generated, had more than 850 000 listeners on Spotify before questions were asked.”
The risks of misinformation and digital fatigue
The risk is more than just junk mail status of content. AI slop distributes misinformation. It creates confusion and it pushes audiences to doubt what they see.
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Earlier this year, deepfake pictures of a plane crash in Durban created exactly that kind of fake news thread.
Researchers have warned that search engines are filling up with pages written to manipulate rankings. Others said it will harm creativity itself.
Murray said there is already a toll on people.
The rise of personal AI agents
“We have been tracking digital wellness trends. People have digital fatigue and this will lead to the Agentic AI Rush,” she said.
She said this was when people start to rely on personal AI agents to filter and manage the noise.
“These agents would handle inboxes and feeds and clear away the slop before it reaches the user,” she said.
There are ads on social media punting these kinds of services.
“It’s really a tale of unintended consequences,” said Murray. “Technology designed to save time and spark efficiency, but it is clogging the very channels it was supposed to streamline.
“Writers and editors now spend hours cleaning up content produced in seconds. Search engines are filled with repetition.”
