How AI’s Growing Pains Warped the Internet in 2024
AI-generated content flooded the internet in 2024, producing low-quality media that undermined trust and even warped real-world events. Misleading AI-generated marketing materials led to the collapse of events like Willy’s Chocolate Experience and a nonexistent Dublin Halloween parade.
Rhiannon Williamsarchive writes for MIT Technology Review
AI slop infiltrated almost every corner of the internet. Generative AI makes creating reams of text, images, videos, and other types of material a breeze. Because it takes just a few seconds for your model of choice to spit out a result once you enter a prompt, these models have become a quick, easy way to produce content on a massive scale. And 2024 was the year we started calling this (generally poor-quality) media what it is: AI slop.
Business chatbots dispensed inaccurate legal advice, while AI image generators created harmful deepfakes, highlighting the ongoing challenge of managing AI’s unpredictable impact.