Article 'AI slop' is turning up everywhere. An expert explains what's at stake.

[C C]

https://www.sciencealert.com/ai-slop-is-...s-at-stake

EXCERPTS: . . . In many cases, people submit AI slop that's just good enough to attract and keep users' attention, allowing the submitter to profit from platforms that monetize streaming and view-based content.

The ease of generating content with AI enables people to submit low-quality articles to publications. Clarkesworld, an online science fiction magazine that accepts user submissions and pays contributors, stopped taking new submissions in 2024 because of the flood of AI-generated writing it was getting.

These aren't the only places where this happens – even Wikipedia is dealing with AI-generated low-quality content that strains its entire community moderation system. If the organization is not successful in removing it, a key information resource people depend on is at risk.

[...] Even when it's apparent that content is AI-generated, it can still be used to spread misinformation by fooling some people who briefly glance at it.

AI slop also harms artists by causing job and financial losses and crowding out content made by real creators. The placement of this lower-quality AI-generated content is often not distinguished by the algorithms that drive social media consumption, and it displaces entire classes of creators who previously made their livelihood from online content.

[...] Along with forcing us to be on guard for deepfakes and "inauthentic" social media accounts, AI is now leading to piles of dreck degrading our media environment. At least there's a catchy name for it... (MORE - details)

[Magical Realist]

I've noticed a marked change in the content of my FB newsfeed articles recently that probably has something to do with this slop. Alot of them are just crap. Claims of new data on that object detected by astronomers showing it is of alien origin. Supposed new discoveries of science like cures for dementia and autism. Pseudoscientific new agey claims about what physics has discovered about light and sound and DNA. AI generated pics of newly discovered bugs and animals. Even claims of an underground interdimensional portal being kept secret by the scientists at CERN. I've probably clicked on enough of these to set the algorithm to keep supplying me with similar content. But if this is all a sign of things to come then I will have to just recalibrate by BS filters. Fact check everything people because with AI now nothing is off the table!

[Syne]

Some of us (skeptics) are already used to fact checking everything. BS from a different source doesn't require us to change our habits.

[Magical Realist]

You can't just be "blanket" skeptical about all extraordinary claims or articles. That would be too easy. What if aliens really were spotted in the solar system one day? We have to find a happy medium between a healthy skepticism and yet an openness to really new and unprecedented events..

[C C]

I've noticed a marked change in the content of my FB newsfeed articles recently that probably has something to do with this slop. Alot of them are just crap. [...]

These days, Sciforums is covered with sex innuendo ads about GAI generated celebrities that the members who don't sign out never see.

YouTube was one of the platforms that got preachy about patrolling for misinformation years back, and yet they accept a flood of crazy AI-generated commercials that hawk every kind of bogus stuff under the sun.

You hear Tony Brown's voice replicated everywhere, even though he's 92 years old and surely long retired from doing anything (including voice work).

[Syne]

You can't just be "blanket" skeptical about all extraordinary claims or articles. That would be too easy. What if aliens really were spotted in the solar system one day? We have to find a happy medium between a healthy skepticism and yet an openness to really new and unprecedented events..

Yes, you can actually require extraordinary evidence before accepting extraordinary claims.
This holds especially true for older, retired folks, who are often targeted by scams. If you're told you won something you never entered to win, you should be very skeptical. The evidence, of you not entering a contest, strongly suggests that it is not valid. The likelihood of something happening does warrant a proportional skepticism. The more unlikely, the more critically it should be verified. That doesn't mean the criteria for acceptance is ever insurmountable.

Too easy is just being a gullible and hapless dupe.

[Magical Realist]

I think it is unwise to rely too heavily on our own sense of probability when dealing with the anomalous. As if there is some lawlike property that keeps extraordinary things from happening simply because they haven't happened yet. Hume warned us about this, pointing out that this is little more than what we have been habituated to.Thus we are sure that the sun will rise tomorrow, not because it is the nature of reality, but because we are so used to it happening again and again in past. We simply don't know enough about reality to rule out the extraordinary. Practically speaking we do it all the time maybe, but not in principle. By its very definition an anomaly is something that defies what we are used to. But there's no law saying it can't happen at any time. The black swan fallacy applies here.

[Syne]

What you think is irrelevant, because you've never shown an ounce of discernment.
Since no one is making any sweeping claims, like there's no such thing as aliens, there is no black swan fallacy.
But you'd already know that if you could only read worth a damn.