Great article and cathartic to read as always! I encountered the slop layer today when planning a road trip. Most top search results for “things to do in the Ozarks” are listicles from 2025 that unmistakably read like chatgpt. One was titled “Top 25” but only had 5 things. Eventually I remembered my usual trick of setting the search time period to “everything before 12/1/23,” and as usual, that’s when I found the good stuff.
On the Breaking Rust thing, one of the big record labels (UMG) recently reached a settlement with one of the AI-songwriting slop machines (Udio) whereby people who make slop music will have to keep it on the Udio platform (instead of being able to export it to streaming platforms like Spotify). IF this system works (a big "if"), and IF the other record labels and other slop machines reach similar settlements (another big "if"), it would help contain music slop within it's own slopiverse. I just wrote about this here https://egghutt.substack.com/p/ai-musicians-are-starting-to-replace if you're interested. It's just amazing how many battles have to be fought on so many fronts. Hammers up indeed.
I have been reflecting lately after seeing tons of "digital art" posted on Bluesky, how it basically all looks the same. Often females with ginormous breasts. Does everyone have mommy issues? Not only is there a lack of originality, the parameters are so limited and it seems like no one wants to be different. My parents loved gambling with all its bells and whistles, similar to pinball. Those younger than me grew up playing video games. Aside from the violence and hyper-sexualization, the imagery has a limited palette. For those of us in the middle neither of those worlds beckon. For those of us who are artists in the real world, it is distressing to see how arts and crafts are being infected by this narrowing of what art is. No longer are people drawing on the past to create something new. Now it all looks the same. This is the world we are being asked to live in.
The mention of the slop tax made me think it was referring to the additional cognitive burden of acquiring information online. Now you not only have to try and figure out if the person providing the information is lying, you have to interrogate if it's a person at all.
I was hoping the bubble would burst, but honestly I'm less sure now... The Coke ad is perfectly fine for me to ignore on my TV or press skip on YT. Walk my Walk hits that vaguely aggrieved, country but for people who don't own cattle vibe that will absolutely being playing in the background of my "flyover state" gas station. Though that's probably also an indictment of the fusion of pop and hip hop into generic copy paste country music coming out of Nashville.
Cathartic piece, as so often, but as so many of your reporting peers -- notably even 404 Media -- your framing gets accountability backwards.
There is a very deliberate and very deceptive tech PR frame narrative of "a democratization tool that learns like people."
But users are customers, not creators. Generative AI services are that: services, not tools. A tool is empty and inert and relies on end-user skill and assets. Whereas a service actively delivers the output and comes bundled with assets.
Which makes the slop story not one of the internet dying by 800 million empowered users (a self reported number there is no good reason to trust), but by one(1) centralized media production service.
Tools augment. Services replace. Tools empower. Services disempower and deskill.
Microsoft perform the work replacement proper, at inference time, based on assets sourced and services built, designed and marketed by OpenAI.
The fictional person-in-the-machine serves as a liability shield and anthroxic obfuscation of industrial scale sampling for the courts and general public, notably successfully so with Judge Alsup, and more remarkably, with Bartz and the other plaintiffs as well as their counsel. This one is rampant, and kudos for steering clear of that one.
It's easy to stumble on the very messy value chain, and the consumer/producer relation, given the anthroxic PR bombmats and deliberate obfuscation of roles: "create with AI", "turn your ideas into X", "text-to-image" etc. But the minute you get more than you put in, and more easily noticeable, when you cross over from one media to another, you have entered a consumer/producer relation with a service provider.
Most importantly for the topic at hand, the "tool" misnomer serves to shove all liability downstream, from producer to consumer. Fraudulent and deceptive marketing, in dire need of a re-frame by honest journalists in general, and accountability seeking tech journalists in particular.
Because if we frame genAI tech companies in their legacy role, providing the means of distribution and production, we miss that they have become media producers and publishers -- only without the input costs, labor costs, and output liability of their legacy media competition.
So: hammers up! But a 180 degree turn on create vs commission. Please.
These are good points, but I'm not seeing any point of disagreement? Perhaps I was inarticulate in my framing, or perhaps I called them tools at some point in a prior post (I try not to do that!) but I always try to make clear that the perpetrators here are the tech/AI companies and their enterprise clients, like Disney and EA (publisher of Call of Duty). And, sure, some scammers and grifters taking advantage of the platforms and systems they've created. But I've written at length on the BS of the 'democratization' idea and my work squarely locates the power brokers in tech as the accountable party here.
I like your framing of genAI as a service rather than a tool. It really renders their marketing ridiculous: Automate part of your job with this *service* and you'll be invaluable! Use this *service* to supercharge your creativity!
It exposes its true nature. I'm going to explain it this way from now on.
Reminds me of when people were making studio Ghibli rendering of everything for like a week and then the trend wore out super quick. The insidious part is that AI makes thinks remarkable for a moment and then they just become a banality
It's very weird indeed and I feel I'm living parallel social lives at the minute. There's my fellow friends in the arts - writers, musicians, performers - all despairing of all the crap that surrounds. And then there's the people who just use AI, daily, without thinking. It feels a bit like when people randomly all started buying Alexas, except far worse.
Yeah that's an excellent read. We should take comfort in our God-given ability to spot this slop , at least for now, at least when we're paying attention.
The “slop layer” is real, but it’s not new. Traditional art produced centuries of forgettable artworks and decorative filler - most of it vanished without a trace. What endured was the work shaped by vision, skill, and intention. Don’t fixate on the slop. Every medium has it. What matters - and what lasts - is the art made with purpose. Great AI artists are already emerging, and their work will define the era long after the noise fades.
From my limited understanding Arc raiders did use voice actors, but there's an option in the game which turns your own voice (when chatting with team mates) into one of the voices of the characters. So, there's real voice acting by the characters and ai trained voices for the players. I read a piece by gamerant (https://gamerant.com/arc-raiders-gen-ai-voice-acting-controversy-explained/) where the journo points out "The actors were reportedly paid and gave their consent to have their voices used in this way, but still, this is where things get messy...Can you really call it consent when refusing means losing a chance at a job?"
Great article and cathartic to read as always! I encountered the slop layer today when planning a road trip. Most top search results for “things to do in the Ozarks” are listicles from 2025 that unmistakably read like chatgpt. One was titled “Top 25” but only had 5 things. Eventually I remembered my usual trick of setting the search time period to “everything before 12/1/23,” and as usual, that’s when I found the good stuff.
I ran across one of those for my area that insisted we had an Amtrack station. We famously do not.
what a review!
I just reread what I wrote and found a typo. Search for everything before 12/1/*22*. That is the date chatgpt was released.
On the Breaking Rust thing, one of the big record labels (UMG) recently reached a settlement with one of the AI-songwriting slop machines (Udio) whereby people who make slop music will have to keep it on the Udio platform (instead of being able to export it to streaming platforms like Spotify). IF this system works (a big "if"), and IF the other record labels and other slop machines reach similar settlements (another big "if"), it would help contain music slop within it's own slopiverse. I just wrote about this here https://egghutt.substack.com/p/ai-musicians-are-starting-to-replace if you're interested. It's just amazing how many battles have to be fought on so many fronts. Hammers up indeed.
I have been reflecting lately after seeing tons of "digital art" posted on Bluesky, how it basically all looks the same. Often females with ginormous breasts. Does everyone have mommy issues? Not only is there a lack of originality, the parameters are so limited and it seems like no one wants to be different. My parents loved gambling with all its bells and whistles, similar to pinball. Those younger than me grew up playing video games. Aside from the violence and hyper-sexualization, the imagery has a limited palette. For those of us in the middle neither of those worlds beckon. For those of us who are artists in the real world, it is distressing to see how arts and crafts are being infected by this narrowing of what art is. No longer are people drawing on the past to create something new. Now it all looks the same. This is the world we are being asked to live in.
Really well written piece and being on the frontline of this in the ad industry is eye opening. Thank you
Thanks for this! Will quote you (with credit of course) in my 'Your AI slop is giving me depression' talk to my students
The mention of the slop tax made me think it was referring to the additional cognitive burden of acquiring information online. Now you not only have to try and figure out if the person providing the information is lying, you have to interrogate if it's a person at all.
I was hoping the bubble would burst, but honestly I'm less sure now... The Coke ad is perfectly fine for me to ignore on my TV or press skip on YT. Walk my Walk hits that vaguely aggrieved, country but for people who don't own cattle vibe that will absolutely being playing in the background of my "flyover state" gas station. Though that's probably also an indictment of the fusion of pop and hip hop into generic copy paste country music coming out of Nashville.
Cathartic piece, as so often, but as so many of your reporting peers -- notably even 404 Media -- your framing gets accountability backwards.
There is a very deliberate and very deceptive tech PR frame narrative of "a democratization tool that learns like people."
But users are customers, not creators. Generative AI services are that: services, not tools. A tool is empty and inert and relies on end-user skill and assets. Whereas a service actively delivers the output and comes bundled with assets.
Which makes the slop story not one of the internet dying by 800 million empowered users (a self reported number there is no good reason to trust), but by one(1) centralized media production service.
Tools augment. Services replace. Tools empower. Services disempower and deskill.
Microsoft perform the work replacement proper, at inference time, based on assets sourced and services built, designed and marketed by OpenAI.
The fictional person-in-the-machine serves as a liability shield and anthroxic obfuscation of industrial scale sampling for the courts and general public, notably successfully so with Judge Alsup, and more remarkably, with Bartz and the other plaintiffs as well as their counsel. This one is rampant, and kudos for steering clear of that one.
It's easy to stumble on the very messy value chain, and the consumer/producer relation, given the anthroxic PR bombmats and deliberate obfuscation of roles: "create with AI", "turn your ideas into X", "text-to-image" etc. But the minute you get more than you put in, and more easily noticeable, when you cross over from one media to another, you have entered a consumer/producer relation with a service provider.
Most importantly for the topic at hand, the "tool" misnomer serves to shove all liability downstream, from producer to consumer. Fraudulent and deceptive marketing, in dire need of a re-frame by honest journalists in general, and accountability seeking tech journalists in particular.
Because if we frame genAI tech companies in their legacy role, providing the means of distribution and production, we miss that they have become media producers and publishers -- only without the input costs, labor costs, and output liability of their legacy media competition.
So: hammers up! But a 180 degree turn on create vs commission. Please.
These are good points, but I'm not seeing any point of disagreement? Perhaps I was inarticulate in my framing, or perhaps I called them tools at some point in a prior post (I try not to do that!) but I always try to make clear that the perpetrators here are the tech/AI companies and their enterprise clients, like Disney and EA (publisher of Call of Duty). And, sure, some scammers and grifters taking advantage of the platforms and systems they've created. But I've written at length on the BS of the 'democratization' idea and my work squarely locates the power brokers in tech as the accountable party here.
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/ai-is-not-democratizing-creativity
Yep, you usually get all of it right. It’s a couple of mentions of ”create” above. Pet peeve, pardon :)
Got it — no it’s a valid point, and worth keeping in mind for sure when thinking about all this
I like your framing of genAI as a service rather than a tool. It really renders their marketing ridiculous: Automate part of your job with this *service* and you'll be invaluable! Use this *service* to supercharge your creativity!
It exposes its true nature. I'm going to explain it this way from now on.
Thought you may enjoy my piece on Slop - https://optimistictech.substack.com/p/we-need-to-invent-our-way-out-of?r=y2n2m
Given this article, thought you may be interested in something I just wrote - https://optimistictech.substack.com/p/we-need-to-invent-our-way-out-of
Reminds me of when people were making studio Ghibli rendering of everything for like a week and then the trend wore out super quick. The insidious part is that AI makes thinks remarkable for a moment and then they just become a banality
It's very weird indeed and I feel I'm living parallel social lives at the minute. There's my fellow friends in the arts - writers, musicians, performers - all despairing of all the crap that surrounds. And then there's the people who just use AI, daily, without thinking. It feels a bit like when people randomly all started buying Alexas, except far worse.
Yeah that's an excellent read. We should take comfort in our God-given ability to spot this slop , at least for now, at least when we're paying attention.
Isn't Slop being generous?
More like Toxic waste....
Briliant. Every time I get the urge to make another AI post on my Substack, I read your latest and think “well, Brian’s got it covered.”
The “slop layer” is real, but it’s not new. Traditional art produced centuries of forgettable artworks and decorative filler - most of it vanished without a trace. What endured was the work shaped by vision, skill, and intention. Don’t fixate on the slop. Every medium has it. What matters - and what lasts - is the art made with purpose. Great AI artists are already emerging, and their work will define the era long after the noise fades.
From my limited understanding Arc raiders did use voice actors, but there's an option in the game which turns your own voice (when chatting with team mates) into one of the voices of the characters. So, there's real voice acting by the characters and ai trained voices for the players. I read a piece by gamerant (https://gamerant.com/arc-raiders-gen-ai-voice-acting-controversy-explained/) where the journo points out "The actors were reportedly paid and gave their consent to have their voices used in this way, but still, this is where things get messy...Can you really call it consent when refusing means losing a chance at a job?"