AI-Generated Content Floods Social Media, Raising Concerns About Digital Reality

Artificially generated content, dubbed “AI slop,” has become nearly unavoidable across social media platforms and the internet at large. From cute animals performing impossible feats to political deepfakes, this content has proliferated rapidly since 2023, changing how people interact with digital media.

Videos showing cats competing in Olympic diving, babies piloting jumbo jets, and rabbits bouncing on trampolines have garnered hundreds of millions of views—despite being completely fabricated. These AI-generated clips represent a new frontier of digital content that’s quick and cheap to produce but increasingly difficult to distinguish from reality.

“It’s the stuff that you see in your feed that you didn’t necessarily ask for that looks a little bit off, that was clearly generated quite quickly and quite cheaply,” explains Max Read, an author who studies internet phenomena. This content is “usually designed to be scrolled through for a small amount of engagement and then moved past.”

The phenomenon has even penetrated the highest levels of American politics. Former President Donald Trump has shared AI-generated videos purporting to be Fox News segments about nonexistent medical technologies, while fabricated images showing Trump as various figures—from a king to a Jedi Knight—circulate widely. Democrats aren’t immune either, with California Governor Gavin Newsom using similar tactics to mock Trump’s social media activity.

Aidan Walker, an internet culture researcher, notes: “Part of the president’s social media strategy is reflecting the world that his supporters and honestly most Americans live in. And that online world now involves AI slop.”

While low-quality digital content isn’t new—email spam has existed since the internet’s early days—what’s changed is the accessibility and sophistication of AI tools. Starting around 2023, free or inexpensive AI-generating platforms made mass production of convincing fake content possible for almost anyone.

“What has changed is who can do it, how fast they can do it. There’s zero barrier to entry,” says Hany Farid, a digital forensics expert at the University of California, Berkeley. “This is anybody with a keyboard and internet connection making any image, any video, anybody doing or saying anything and then distributing it to the world instantaneously through social media.”

The technological advancement has been staggering. Just a few years ago, AI attempts to animate a celebrity like Will Smith eating spaghetti produced glitchy, obviously fake results. Today’s tools create nearly indistinguishable simulations of reality.

Major AI companies like Google and OpenAI have implemented restrictions against creating certain harmful content, including sexually explicit material or content promoting violence. However, many creators have found ways to circumvent these safeguards.

Not all AI-generated content is considered “slop.” Some artists and musicians use these tools creatively. The distinction comes from intent and scale—AI slop typically aims to maximize views and generate advertising revenue.

“The kinds of people who make slop tend to be entrepreneurs and hustlers often in relatively low- or middle-income countries that have good knowledge of English and a lot of widespread internet connectivity,” Read explains. “You see it a lot in India, Pakistan, Kenya, Nigeria, Brazil. It’s pretty hardworking guys trying to make a buck off of a business proposition.”

Content creators have learned that material triggering strong emotional responses performs best, whether through sympathy, fear, or outrage. “The very things that you are most likely to click on is by design,” Farid notes. “You are being manipulated to steal your time, your attention, and so that these companies can deliver you ads.”

Tech companies are embracing this trend. Meta and OpenAI recently announced consumer-friendly tools to create and watch short-form AI videos, signaling their belief in the format’s staying power.

Critics warn about multiple consequences beyond the obvious confusion between real and fake content. The environmental impact is significant—AI requires enormous amounts of electricity and water. Perhaps more insidiously, these videos may further degrade meaningful human connection online.

“On your typical Instagram Reels session, you’re looking at 20 different videos and 15 of those videos now are AI slop videos,” Walker says. “That’s 15 chances that you’re missing to connect with a friend of yours, to learn something new, to find some joke that you can send to the group chat and forge a new bond with people over.”

As technology continues to advance, the line between authentic human creation and artificial content grows increasingly blurred, raising fundamental questions about digital reality and how we process information in the social media age.