Slop is a new Internet phenomenon linked to the development of artificial intelligence, and its sometimes malicious use. It refers to the proliferation of web pages, photos and videos generated by AI, published without any verification, and which pollute the internet.
This is one of the harmful effects of the generalization of content generated by artificial intelligence. For several months, a new phenomenon has appeared on the Internet, to the misfortune of users: slop.
This nuisance, heir to spam, is invading the Web at great speed, on different platforms: first present on forums popular with Internet enthusiasts like 4chan, before landing on YouTube in dedicated areas to comments, slop brings together content generated by artificial intelligence containing numerous errors.
As the New York Times explains in an editorial, the impact of slop is already being felt on certain browsers like Google, with proposals for pizza recipes containing non-toxic glue or even the presence of cats. on the moon. Faced with these errors which have become recurring, Google had notably reduced certain functionalities of its artificial intelligence, Google Gemini.
An easy-to-remember term to attract the attention of Internet users
Promoter of the term, British programmer Simon Willinson indicates that it is necessary to democratize the use of the word “slop”, so that traditional Internet users are warned of the danger.
“Before the term ‘spam’ became widespread, it wasn’t necessarily clear to everyone that unwanted marketing messages were a bad way to behave. I hope that ‘slop’ will have the same impact: making people understand that generating and publishing unreviewed content generated by AI is bad behavior,” he explains in the columns of the Guardian.
