Anybody who has been on social media in the past year has likely interacted with what many people call artificial intelligence (AI) slop, and some are beginning to consider the deeper implications of widespread AI content consumption.
AI slop is generally defined as AI-generated content that is low-quality, mass-produced, and unasked for. Phil Libin, former CEO of Evernote, said that AI slop refers to AI creations that are mediocre and low-effort, contrasting this with AI creations that positively augment human efforts.
While few people seek out AI slop, social media algorithms have begun pushing it, leading to increased engagement.
“There are way too many AI memes now. Most memes I see on Instagram are AI-generated. For example, Italian brain rot or the hotspot meme. They’re funny, but I don’t appreciate how normalized they are,” said Suri Taherian, a Carlmont sophomore.
Social media has shifted towards AI-generated trends, with the same images or captions posted by countless faceless accounts and reposted by digital citizens.
For example, as Taherian mentioned, Italian brain rot is a meme in which AI-generated pictures of animals crossed with inanimate objects are given an Italian name and an AI-generated audio in Italian. Some of these memes are in other languages, such as “Tung Tung Tung Sahur,” which is in Indonesian and refers to a Muslim tradition.
The hotspot meme is similar, involving an AI-generated image and a text-to-speech audio in a mix of English and Indonesian.
“We’re seeing how quickly things can grow on social media with trends like Italian brainrot or the University of South Carolina Ice Bucket Challenge,” said Carlmont sophomore Charlene Xu. “It has helped me connect with so many people and build my relationships.”
However, a difference between AI slop and human trends like the Ice Bucket Challenge is that AI slop requires less effort to reproduce and is not dependent on prior relationships. It has the benefit of connecting people, as it spreads quickly and requires a low barrier of entry to appreciate, thus enabling online and in-person interaction through in-group signifiers shared among a broad community.
This community is also increasingly international, represented by the multilingual and often nonsensical pictures and videos that trend.
“I’d say Italian brain rot is mostly being consumed by an American audience, and I’ve also seen a South Korean audience, while the memes themselves are in Italian or Indonesian,” Taherian said.
However, some believe this form of content can also be negative.
For example, Bombardino Crocodilo, one of the Italian brain rot animals, has an offensive component. The crocodile bomber plane’s audio describes it bombing children in the Gaza Strip.
“That isn’t a good message to be throwing around, so I think people need to be more careful about what they see and share on the Internet,” Taherian said.
Most people do not reproduce such content with negative intent, but rather because they do not pay enough attention to observe it. Often, people only see references to memes rather than their originals, separating them from their harmful contexts.
“A lot of the time, people are just scrolling for fun and not really thinking about what is on their screen,” Taherian said.
Xu also observed this idea.
“People share funny posts and think of them as harmless without trying to figure out where they came from first,” Xu said.
This can lead to passive consumption of misinformation by social media users, thus causing them to internalize false information and harmful ideas.
These effects are multiplied for younger audiences. While in the past, older social media users were mocked for their inability to detect scams or fake content online, the advent of AI has made it so that nobody is exempt. Teenagers and children who have grown up with the Internet may also lack critical skills.
“I still remember YouTube videos that I saw when I was really little that scared me or changed my perception of something. So if, for kids today, their first impressions online are things like AI slop that encourage them not to think or that can have harmful messages, that will affect their development,” Taherian said.
Pooja Kumar Iyer is a photographer and a mother of two. She has observed negative effects of extensive social media use on her children’s attention span, critical thinking, and real-life interactions, all of which she believes widespread AI content exacerbates.
“A concerning part of the advent of AI is that children have stopped researching and thinking critically to form their own opinions,” Kumar Iyer said. “In my house, my eight-year-old daughter consumes content passively, while my fourteen-year-old is only beginning to question what she sees.”
Additionally, these trends do not arise from nowhere. AI slop is typically intentionally produced as a low-effort way to monetize consumer attention. Several big companies have also adopted it as an advertising tool or to increase efficiency.
Many believe it is important to recognize these manufactured origins in order to critically assess the effects of AI content on consumers and industries that utilize it. For example, it has an impact on the workforce and the environment.
One effect of AI content’s murky origins and rapid spread is its increasing use by political factions and misinformation spreaders, who know it is harder to verify, and few people care enough to attempt to verify information online.
Another effect is the stifling of human creativity. Kumar Iyer described appreciating the ChatGPT Studio Ghibli AI art trend until discovering how it went against the stated values of Hayao Miyazaki, the creator of Studio Ghibli. She also compared AI to iPhones regarding their potential impact on photography.
“As a photographer, I can see both pros and cons of increased AI use. No matter what, it is here to stay, so it is up to us to use it ethically,” Kumar Iyer said.
Despite today’s rapid trend cycle, AI slop is likely to continue growing due to its ability to make minor shifts and create a continuing sense of novelty, even as viewers see the same thing repeatedly. However, it is still up to social media users to decide how they feel about it and how best to engage with it.
“Think about all the hours we could spend doing things we love, instead of scrolling through something we’ll forget about the second we close our phones,” Taherian said.
