AI Slop: Drowning in the Digital Deluge

AI-Slop(!!). (I heard it for the first time as a word here), though been experiencing a deluge of it recently.

In this episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver dives into “AI Slop", a term that somehow manages to sound both silly and sinister and unpacks how generative AI is flooding the web with strange videos, fake news, and synthetic images that are easy to scroll past but hard to ignore. The result is both funny and deeply sobering.

Link to Original Show (yep, this is not a podcast 😄)

1. It starts with a cat in a sombrero, and ends in existential dread

John Oliver opens with a viral AI-generated video of a single dad cat raising his kitten. It's surreal, sweet, and wildly popular; until you realize it's not real. What starts as a cute moment spirals into an absurd, uncanny world of bizarre AI videos that rack up tens of millions of views. This is the heart of “AI Slop”, content that’s technically impressive, emotionally manipulative, and spiritually hollow.

2. What is “AI Slop,” exactly?

It’s the new spam. A flood of AI-generated content: images, music, news stories, and videos, that’s increasingly indistinguishable from the real thing. Whether it’s a pug parenting a child on a desert island or Jesus taking selfies with the Pope, it’s content created not to inform or inspire, but to hijack your attention. And the platforms are full of it.

3. The platforms are complicit >> because it pays (!!)

This isn’t just an internet quirk. It’s a business model. Oliver points out that Meta (Facebook and Instagram) has retooled its algorithm so a third of your feed is content from accounts you don’t follow. Why? Because viral slop keeps you scrolling. And because platforms pay creators for engagement, AI spam has become a revenue stream for anyone willing to game the system.

4. The slop factories are industrial

There’s now an entire ecosystem of slop “gurus” teaching people how to mass-produce AI content. Want to make viral cat videos? $17.99 gets you the playbook. Want to generate bedroom photos with “stunning black curtains”? There’s a tool for that. Slop isn’t just spreading > it’s being franchised.

5. Pinterest is a cautionary tale

Remember when Pinterest was a haven of real inspiration and beautifully photographed DIY projects? Now it’s swamped with uncanny AI images that give users headaches. One woman’s rant about how “Pinterest is becoming unusable” becomes a stand-in for a larger grief: the platforms we once loved are becoming soulless image dumps.

6. Fake news, reimagined

Some AI videos don’t just stretch reality, they break it. Oliver points to viral courtroom dramas featuring fictional legal battles with figures like Karoline Levitt, complete with deep narration and comic book fonts. Thousands of commenters believe these completely fabricated stories are real. The scariest part? They’re not alone.

7. When slop becomes scripture

It’s easy to laugh at slop until you see people posting “tremendous victory for Christians everywhere” under a fake AI video. Even when called out, many refuse to believe it's fake. And others deflect with lines like “It doesn’t matter—it’s emblematic.” Oliver makes the point clear: slop blurs not just what’s true, but what people want to be true.

8. AI music is here: and it’s weirdly obsessed with dust (lol)

We meet The Devil Inside, a country band that has released 10+ albums in two years and all generated by AI. Lyrics are plausible until they veer into the uncanny: "This wicked dust..." (repeated, alarmingly, multiple times). AI music might sound fine at first, but it’s often thematically hollow, and suspiciously Swiffer-coded.

9. The economics of slop

The incentives are low-stakes but global. Creators earn a few cents to a few hundred dollars per viral image. That might not be life-changing in the U.S., but in places like India or Pakistan, where many slop operations are based, it’s enough to fuel a cottage industry of digital churn.

10. Artists are being robbed

Oliver spotlights Michael Jones, a chainsaw sculptor from the UK, whose intricate animal carvings have been copied by AI and turned into viral images stripped of credit. These AI-generated knockoffs are stealing both artistic value and exposure. And platforms aren't exactly stepping in to stop it.

11. Slop even fakes natural disasters—and slows real help

During floods in North Carolina, first responders struggled to separate real emergencies from AI-faked rescue images. In high-stakes scenarios, slop isn’t just annoying—it’s dangerous. Fake explosions in Ukraine, imaginary fires in L.A., even bogus plane crashes—all potentially distract emergency services from actual crises.

12. The "Liar’s Dividend": the scariest part of all

Here’s where things get truly disturbing. When people start to doubt everything, including real events, bad actors gain cover. As Oliver explains, this phenomenon, known as the “liar’s dividend,” allows anyone caught on tape to simply say, “That’s fake.” From politicians to January 6th defendants, this tactic is already in play. The damage isn’t just confusion, it’s collapse.

13. A hilarious but haunting finale

Oliver, always the master of absurd catharsis, ends on a defiant note: commissioning Michael Jones—the real chainsaw artist—to carve a life-sized sculpture of “Cabbage Hulk,” one of the most nonsensical AI memes he could find. It’s a beautiful and petty revenge against slop: stealing from the thief. “We are fucked,” he says, laughing—but there’s a glimmer of hope in honoring real creators, even if the internet’s gone to hell.