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Strange images of a slimy pink Jesus manufactured from shrimp were probably not what OpenAI had in mind when it warned that artificial intelligence could destroy civilization. But that's exactly what happens whenever you put latest technologies within the hands of the general public and tell them they’ll do whatever they need. Two years into the generative AI revolution, now we have entered the age of slop.
The distribution of synthetic, low-quality content corresponding to Shrimp Jesus is basically intentionally and strangely designed for industrial or engagement purposes. In March, Researchers at Stanford and Georgetown Universities found that the Facebook algorithm was actually hijacked by spammy content from text-to-image models like Dall-E and Midjourney. The “Insane Facebook AI error“Account on X kept a running list. A favourite within the run-up to the US election showed Donald Trump manfully saving kittens.
But slop may also be the unintended consequence of AI models trained on AI-generated texts – a type of dataset inbreeding whose unlucky outgrowth has been likened to the House of Habsburg.
Acceleration experts will let you know that that is only a stone within the road to exciting latest user-generated AI content. San Francisco startup Fable Studio has announced a Netflix-style streaming platform for AI movies. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek says people can share “an incredible amount of content” on the music service because the associated fee of constructing music is nearly zero.
The query is whether or not qc will decrease together with manufacturing costs. Note Slop's alliteration with spam – one other type of easily spread online nonsense.
AI generation watermarks would help counteract this. Over time, sloppier content can naturally die out and lose attention. Alternatively, no-cost, no-effort content will ultimately destroy information sharing and online trust. Shrimp Jesus might be only the start.
