Science and Technology

The Internet Is Drowning in AI Slop

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Slop is a useful word; if it’s not already in your vocabulary, it will be soon. Among other meanings, it’s a catchall term for AI-generated garbage that’s choking the internet and that has now made the jump into brick-and-mortar institutions like bookstores and libraries: bizarre images with off-kilter text; inane bots chattering away on social media; cheap, error-filled books. In his feature “Drowning in Slop,” Max Read tracks down where it’s all coming from — and who is profiting from it. “There is no obvious scam at play, no ads or external links,” he writes. Indeed, there is “no business model at all, just eerily contextless pages publishing demented nonsense into a void.” When Max discovers how the content creators behind these pages are earning money, it becomes clear that we’re unlikely to see the end of slop anytime soon.

—Christopher Cox, features editor, New York

Drowning in Slop A thriving underground economy is clogging the internet with AI garbage — and it’s only going to get worse.

Illustration: Zohar Lazar
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