What's up with the sudden increase in AI slop?
The fediverse used to feel pretty anti-ai, but over the past month or two I've noticed a LOT of generated memes and images, and they tend to have positive votes.
Has there been a sudden culture shift here? Or is there a substantial percentage of people just unable to tell the difference anymore?
I don't see it, which is horrific considering that others do. can you show a few examples that you think is AI slop?
Its usually deleted by mods fairly quickly because its often being posted into comms that specifically ban it. I saw it in politics comms, shitposts, 196 and more
and how unambiguous is it that those are AI generated content? is it like blurry colors on images, 6 fingers and 3 hands, or what do you recognize on them?
I think I can identify generated images, but text... well I can't even decide. Probably I just can't so far, because I don't remember any posts or comments that were suspicious
"slop" is being thrown around just like "socialist" and "gay". Save it for actual AI slop. Just because something is made by AI doesn't make it automatically "slop" 🙄
There's always been plenty of human-made content that is slop. AI is just another tool to make easy content. Trying to categorize everything done with AI as slop is lazy and shifting blame, ignoring the difficulty in both moderating large volume as well as the lack of a definition of what is and isn't "good". Which really ends up coming back to the individual, who has means to shut out places that are regularly a problem to them.
God I remember deep fried memes. That was around when i decided humanity needed to be reset.
I'm referring to stuff that I consider low quality. I don't mind if something is generated, as long as it is labeled as such and is interesting or valuable in some way.
How would you use that term? Would you call "slop" something that was just mindlessly generated using AI in a single prompt and non-"slop" something that uses AI in more sophisticated/deliberate ways? What is the threshold of something being "slop" ultimately? Is this just result not looking decent enough or amount of effort combined with amount of knowledge and experience that was used to create that? I'm personally conflicted on this, because sometimes even mindless prompt may give great result, and sometimes a lot of manual effort may give shit result. I guess with "slop" I tend to gravitate towards "amount of effort combined with amount of knowledge and experience that was used to create" and perhaps also the amount of content that particular person produces and speed of its production. So if someone is really good with some tools (not necessarily AI) and figured some overpowered shortcuts that allow to produce results very fast with little effort, it also can be called "slop" just for the rate of production alone.
It’s always kind of hard to nail down trendy slang terms, but from what I’ve gathered, and the interpretation I think is useful, is less to do with AI, quality, or effort (although those are certainly common elements of slop) and more to do with what the thing’s role is. What was it made for? What is expected of the audience? Regular art or non-fiction stuff is meant to communicate something to its audience. An emotion, an idea, etc. it requires the audience to engage with it if only in a fairly limited way.
Slop, by contrast, is a product meant to take advantage of the increasingly marketized internet. It’s there merely to capture some small share of the attention economy on a mass scale. It’s not trying to communicate anything to the audience, what it specifically is doesn’t matter, it’s just, to play into the metaphor, feed to fill the trough so people stick around and keep paying, generating data, or looking at ads. All that matters is that it takes up space. It requires nothing of it’s audience, in fact it’s probably advantageous that they don’t spend too much time looking at it, lest they notice how vacuous it is.
Under this definition, we can better sort things out. Someone making art because they want to share an idea or feelings but they use AI because they don’t have the skill to make it themselves? Not slop. Someone making propaganda or misinformation? Not good, but also not slop. It has a purpose which couldn’t be achieved if someone scrolled by it after a second.
Meanwhile, this definition can identify slop, or at least slop-like elements, in other pieces of media you may not have considered. Streaming services have been making movies and TV differently based around the assumption that the audience isn’t actually going to be paying that much attention, so either the content needs to be really attention grabbing, or it needs to be so unremarkable that you get as much out of it while looking at your phone as you would actually giving it your full attention. They make all of this because it’s a cheap way to make it look like their service has a lot to watch so that people keep subscribing. They don’t even necessarily need people to watch it for it to achieve its goal. Just having it existing in the service gives the appearance of value they’re going for.
That output is what matters, because there's no way for us to see the input. How are you going to know what words somebody used to generate an AI image?
Slop to me is a simple, low-quality, repetitive output. So, it's not just one simple, low-quality medium but many. Looks at this video for examples. Or just scroll youtube shorts after searching for anything Indian or even literally "omg look at this" for the search term and you'll see what I'm talking about.
If you have a hard time telling whether AI did it or not, it's not slop.
I somewhat agree. It's overused
As long as it's intentionally made by a human and the end result is high quality, I personally don't really care what AI or other tools they did or didn't use to create that result
I feel like the problem with AI generated content is it's so easy for anyone to generate stuff, so there can be a huge amount created with little effort. There is high quality AI-generated content, but whew there's a lot that's total slop.
I don't know what the best response is, though. Requiring disclosure of AI-generated comment doesn't seem like it would help because that's going to be mostly honor system. User-flagged could be used to brigade/suppress posts. Really it's probably just a matter of blocking users and communities where you see consistent slop.
Yeah I agree. The issue is that image generation tends to result in maximally bland outputs, and the people who post it tend to put minimal effort in.
I'm not categorically anti-ai, but I feel like I am in practice.
They are flooding the zone, there are countless pro-AI generated content instances. It's like playing whack-a-mole, I often downvote obvious and human-altered slop (it's all slop to me). Unfortunately, there are going to be images that have positive votes despite the general dislike of said AI-slop, especially because I tend to block those slop instances these days. Naturally, most of it is objectifying women (something I don't want to see anyway) so those will naturally get a lot of votes because people weren't thinking with the right head.
O don't give a shit and 100% skip useless posts clearly created using AI.
But interesting posts, I do read them even if made with AI.
Common sense. A loud minority has tired of throwing tantrums about AI generated stuff. Other people upvote according to the quality of material, not to the methods of its creation.
This
I made this post in response to seeing a low quality AI video that was literally an ad for a company.
I'm fine with actually high quality AI stuff (labeled, preferably), but there seems to be almost none.
The internet is steadily becoming Facebook. Full of idiots being force fed AI slop. Alarmingly confident in their wrongness about almost everything.
I think I have most AI stuff I encountered blocked, and I assume so do other anti AI people, so there's probably just not enough people downvoting/commenting on AI since they don't get it on their feed
Probably this.
I blocked any and all AI shit I came across. Then I read that they cried about getting downvoted. So I unblocked them, distributed downvotes on their crap like candy and blocked them again. Got a good chuckle out of that.
That was my last interaction with them. It might sound weird, but I actually have better things to do than continue downvoting stuff that literally isn’t art and their posters aren’t artists. That last part has been written solely to trigger these non-artists.
Tfw i use AI as a tool to get stuff done, not to feel good about the process and get to call myself an artist.
Lemmy is a mix between technology geeks and leftists, and many of us are both. The geek tend to be at least somehow interested in gen "AI" and often know the technical words behind it (if not what they mean). The leftists are more worried by the socio economic impact of AI
The issue with the leftists as youve described them is that AI IS happening. There will be no stopping it, no containing it. Its already reshaping our world. And by downplaying its future potential(ai will never be able to identify objects, oops it can now. AI will never be able to make art, whoops it can now. AI will never be able to replace a human in every industry....) you are actively stiffling discussion on how to manage those effects. Anyone who has been seriously following AIs progression over the last ten years can see the patterns on the wall. The time of human workers is over. The only question is whether were going to use AI for the benefit of everyone, or for the benefit of the elite. And by convincing consumers they shouldnt use, even though you cant convince the elite not to, you are only pushing the dial further in the wrong direction.
RIGHT NOW we need to embrace AI. Humans have already shown that we are either incapable or unwilling to run a functional society. Putting something else in charge to make the decisions humans cant or wont is the only possible future we have. Ofc Im not asking to out an llm in charge of the world. But I am asking that people actually do something about their world leaders and start getting ubi implemented today. Because soon enough we will have an AI capable of making those decisions. And make them it will. And thats either a good thing under the post scarcity society weve built, or people rolled over and ignored the problem until they decided they dont need us anymore and get rid of us.
As someone who is both, would definitely say I'm interested in generative ML. (I was an early adopter of locally run diffusion models and LLMs. I kinda ended up deeply disappointed by the tech in a lot of ways, but that's a different discussion.)
But personally for me the issue is that I really don't care to see posts that someone didn't care enough to make themself, or read something that someone didn't care to write. And it's always super bland and uninteresting.
I just haven’t noticed really. The reality is that memes, even ones that were made by hand with a lot of effort, are disposable content. Most of them will get looked at for like 10 seconds tops before you either move on or maybe check out the comments. Nobody who isn’t obsessed with finding the AI slop is going to notice the difference between an AI meme and just a shitty photoshop job.
That’s not to say I’m not concerned by the effects of that. Lower effort needed means more low effort stuff, but it’s not really something I’ve clocked as being particularly out of the ordinary.
I'm thinking it's like ads. Some people see them, read them, click the links. Others recognize by glance and filter them out without bothering to process.
Social media, and internet in general, has always been a wild mix of top notch content and bottom of the barrel garbage sharing screen estate.
People don't care. as long as they can get their infinite scroll with funny picture, they're happy.
This brings up an excellent point about addiction. A quick longer than I'd planned anecdote: over the last few years I've nearly completely dumped all social media (and big tech in general). Facebook, Insta, Twitter, all gone. The only social for the last few years I've had left was Reddit, and I dumped that a couple months ago (all social media is toxic, I learned).
I swapped Reddit for Lemmy a few months ago and noticed a huge difference, not just the fewer toxic people, but in the lack of posts overall by comparison. I found myself scrolling through the same Lemmy posts throughout the day, my brain trying to repeat the cycle from Reddit, but stayed strong and didn't go back to Reddit haha.
Anyway, there's still toxicity on Lemmy, and I realized how much it affects me without the cloud of all the other socials bogging it down. Not a lot, but enough. So I made a decision and went back to my old nerd days. I didn't want to miss out on legit articles I was interested in from social media so I set up an rss reader. I started checking out Lemmy in the morning, and my rss throughout the day, which doesn't update often.
What I found at first was I was re-checking lemmy, re-loading rss, and thinking about what else I can put on my phone to scratch that itch. I was (am) still addicted to the dopamine hit of forever-feeds of useless garbage. So instead, I picked up a book. It's been a long time, and it's a slow adjustment, but wow is it ever so much better. Aside from some small interaction on Lemmy in the morning like this, I don't see comments anymore, I read the info I'm interested in reading and make my own judgments without comments trying to sway me, and use my former doom-scrolling time to read a book.
To sum up, you're absolutely right. Addiction is a bitch and the average person doesn't even realize they're addicted.
I was never big in most social medias except YouTube and Discord until recently where I have to be as im an adult and it's expected for you to. It really made me realize Lemmy is WAY less toxic than others and it's very rare online to have a meaningful conversation with someone.
for example on Instagram there was a joke post by a pretty lady that said "my boyfriend just paid to get his tires rotated, doesn't he know that his tires rotated every time he drives?", obvious satire. but the comments were ALL insulting the lady calling her a bimbo and shit. Like genuinely people there won't read a comment longer than 2 sentences.
Same with Reddit. In fact I'd just decided to delete the Reddit app and just hang out here, because the AI slop has become intolerable. But really I'm seeing it everywhere. Google News used to be interesting and now again AI slop. Is this the end of human-based online articles and interactions?
It's been everywhere for a while, but the fediverse seemed like a last bastion up until very recently where I've noticed a change.
Is this the end of human-based online articles and interactions?
I sure hope not. At least it's just a few posts here that are generated for now. If it ever gets to the level of Reddit, I might just leave.
John Oliver did a show on this recently, in summary: "not all AI is spam, but all spam is AI". My take, legitimate accounts with a long history are cheap to generate, they're a great purchase to help spread bad faith disinformation and look legit. It's a business model.
I honestly don't see much from the comms I follow (and it's a lot thanks to piefed topics), and when I do browse all, if I find a post from a comm that allows them, I either ignore it or block the comm, for example a genAI art comms.
Idk, lemmy, mbin, piefed, etc isn't reddit with algorithms so it's kind of on the user if they see a lot of it, IMO.
Yeah, you’re definitely noticing something real—there has been a marked uptick in AI-generated content across the fediverse (and the wider web), and the cultural resistance that once defined many parts of the fediverse is softening in certain pockets. Here's a breakdown of what’s likely going on:
Cultural Shift: Anti-AI Sentiment Is Fragmenting The fediverse (especially Mastodon and related platforms) did start out with strong anti-corporate, anti-surveillance, and often anti-AI stances. But:
The fediverse is not monolithic. As it grows, the original culture is diversifying. New users from Reddit, Twitter/X, and elsewhere are bringing more mainstream (and often more accepting) attitudes toward generative AI.
Fatigue and normalization. Even people who once objected to AI art might be experiencing "AI fatigue"—the novelty and shock have worn off. Now it’s just part of the media landscape.
Irony and memetics. A lot of AI slop is posted ironically, which muddies the waters. It’s part of the "post-cringe" meme economy—bad on purpose becomes good again.
Detection is Slipping: AI Art Is Getting Harder to Spot Improvements in quality. Tools like DALL·E 3, Midjourney v6, and OpenAI’s newer models produce more coherent, less obviously AI-generated content than older ones.
Users are desensitized. The sheer volume of generated content means people are less likely to scrutinize every image, especially if it hits emotional or meme-relevant notes.
Some folks just don’t care. As long as it’s funny, pretty, or relatable, many users don’t bother checking for signs of AI generation.
Positive Votes Don’t Always Equal Approval Engagement ≠ Endorsement. Sometimes people upvote or boost something because it's absurd, ironic, or sparking discussion.
Algorithm-free doesn’t mean signal-free. Even on federated platforms, attention follows trends. If a few users with high visibility post AI memes, others follow.
So, what does this mean? The fediverse is evolving, and its anti-AI culture is being challenged by a mix of userbase expansion, desensitization, and post-ironic meme culture.
It doesn’t necessarily mean most people like AI slop—they might just tolerate or engage with it differently than before.
You’ll still find strong anti-AI sentiment in certain instances (e.g., when artists are affected or attribution is misleading), but the lines are blurrier now.
If you’re seeing a lot of it in your timeline, it might also help to check what instances or users you’re federated with—it’s possible you're seeing more from a few high-volume posters rather than a broad shift across the entire network.
Is this post AI generated?
Many people don't care about it. Me included, for instance.
I would give the reason why but I don't know if anyone is truly interested in knowning.
I don't consider things being made by AI as something terrible. If the post is fine I upvote and comment like any other post. If the content is lazy, clickbaity or plain bad then it's bad. But if it's good I don't care that it was produced using some AI tool or other.
It's true that the fediverse it's still hostile towards AI conversation (this very comment have high possibilities to be drowned with downvotes) but I'm glad the general stance is changing little by little. I hope in a few years the hostility would be much more marginal, specially if the fediverse keeps growing and more people with more diverse opinions come in.
I like to talk about topics, seeing different opinions about it, and when everyone have the same opinion the discussion is not really interesting. With AI, it's something new that sparks a lot of though process about may topic. For instance the morality of it, or the limits, trying to find the gray areas between the black and the white. It can be very interesting, and I'm glad, little by little we can start talking about it.
I've noticed a LOT of generated memes and they tend to have positive votes
What's the issue with that one in particular? Isn't the entire point of a meme just whether it's funny or not?
I mean, they're low effort and unoriginal to begin with. The AI isn't really changing anything about that.
I feel like memes is one of the few places where AI doesn't hurt anyone at all.
It's annoying that people are downvoting you just for asking an honest question. I think the anti-ai sentiment is strong enough that in many communities, people just oppose it in any context. The arguments I usually see against using ai are:
All are real concerns, but I agree that making memes should be an effectively harmless use of it even if you otherwise oppose it. 1 and 3 aren't really applicable to your average meme. 2 could apply depending on how you measure it, but most of the cost of ai is from training, not generation. For someone using the tool and not developing it, that training is a sunk cost they are not responsible for. I've seen estimates that you can generate about 9 images with the energy it takes to fully charge a phone. I think that's more than worth it if you share it with a few other people to enjoy.
Personally I block all the meme communities.
Damn, I don’t follow any meme stuff anywhere but Lemmy. Guess I’m late to the meme party, I kinda hated them for the first couple decades of the 2000s.
Meh. They are fine in moderation but whole communities just about them is to much for me. Its like I block all sports ones to and im not 100% uninterested in sports but its not something I keep up with daily or even weekly.
AI sentiment IRL seems to have exploded as well. I think everyone is accepting 'the inevitable'
i wish there were a client available that would simply hide all image posts because i really hate memes
In Jerboa I know you can change posts from Card to List, which will get rid of the large pictures and make them a small image off to the right, maybe your client has something similar? Not sure if there is another option that might mold it more to your liking.
Vs
Haven't seen a difference but I also block / downvote everybody / community that posts ai slob so ...
Haven’t seen a difference, but I also focus almost exclusively on the communities I’ve subscribed to. Checking the all or local feed has been annoying and useless since day one, so nothing has changed.