Drowning in Slop. It's clogging the internet with AI garbage
AI-generated content, termed "slop," is overwhelming the internet, leading to low-quality submissions, particularly in publishing and academia, while a gray market exploits this trend, threatening information integrity.
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The rise of AI-generated content, referred to as "slop," is increasingly overwhelming the internet, leading to a proliferation of low-quality, incoherent material. Neil Clarke, founder of the speculative fiction magazine Clarkesworld, experienced a surge in AI-generated submissions that were often formulaic and poorly constructed, prompting him to temporarily halt submissions. This phenomenon is not isolated; it affects various platforms, including social media, music streaming, and online publishing, where AI-generated works are flooding search results and diluting the quality of information available. The impact extends to academic integrity, with studies indicating that a significant portion of academic papers may involve AI processing, raising concerns about the reliability of scientific knowledge. The situation is exacerbated by a gray market of spammers and entrepreneurs exploiting generative AI for profit, creating a cycle of demand for content that AI can fulfill. As the internet becomes increasingly cluttered with this "slop," the challenge of distinguishing between human-created and AI-generated content grows, threatening the integrity of information and creativity online. Without effective measures to combat this trend, the quality of online content and the reliability of information sources may continue to decline.
- The term "slop" describes low-quality, AI-generated content flooding the internet.
- Neil Clarke's magazine Clarkesworld temporarily halted submissions due to overwhelming AI-generated stories.
- AI-generated content is affecting various platforms, including social media and academic publishing.
- A gray market of spammers is exploiting generative AI for profit, worsening the content quality crisis.
- Distinguishing between human and AI-generated content is becoming increasingly difficult.
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2 comments> In June, researchers published a study that concluded that one-tenth of the academic papers they examined “were processed with LLMs,” calling into question not just those individual papers but whole networks of citation and reference on which scientific knowledge relies.
> “I don’t think anyone has reliable information about post-2021 language usage by humans,” Speer wrote.
> Derek Sullivan, a cataloguer at a public-library system in Pennsylvania, told me that AI-generated books had begun to cross his desk regularly. Though he first noticed the problem thanks to a recipe book by a nonexistent author that featured “a meal plan that told you to eat straight marinara sauce for lunch,” the slop books he sees often cover highly consequential subjects like living with fibromyalgia or raising children with ADHD.
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