Exploring the rise of 'AI slop' - low-quality AI-generated content flooding social media and the web. Learn how to use AI responsibly while maintaining authenticity and quality.

Episode Show Notes

Key Topics Discussed:

What is AI Slop?

Definition: Low-quality AI-generated content designed solely for clicks and engagement
Common examples on LinkedIn and social media platforms
The pollution of online timelines and feeds

The Google Response

Historical context: Early SEO content farms
Current consequences: De-indexing of sites with mass AI-generated content
Google's role in maintaining content quality

Real-World Impact

Bot interactions replacing human engagement
Case study: Coca-Cola's AI-generated Christmas advertisement
Consumer expectations vs. AI efficiency

Finding the Right Balance

Using AI as an augmentation tool, not replacement
Strategies for maintaining authenticity
Practical approaches: AI for templates and ideas + human refinement

Key Takeaways:

Quality over quantity in AI content generation
Consider the consumer perspective before publishing
Use AI to enhance, not replace, human creativity
Maintain authentic interactions online
Think long-term about content strategy

Questions to Consider:

Would your audience be satisfied with purely AI-generated content?
How can you use AI to save time while preserving authenticity?
What's the right balance for your content strategy?

Chapters

0:00 - What is AI Slop?
0:44 - The Google Content Problem
1:47 - Quality vs. Quantity Trade-offs
2:23 - Case Study: Coca-Cola's AI Advertisement
3:07 - Finding the Right Balance with AI

What is The AI Briefing?

The AI Briefing is your 5-minute daily intelligence report on AI in the workplace. Designed for busy corporate leaders, we distill the latest news, emerging agentic tools, and strategic insights into a quick, actionable briefing. No fluff, no jargon overload—just the AI knowledge you need to lead confidently in an automated world.

Hi folks, welcome to today's AI briefing.

Today, I want to talk briefly about AIslop, which is a glorious name for all the AI
generated junk that we start to see all over social media and elsewhere in the World Wide

Web and beyond.

So AIslop, generally speaking, it's the stuff that you see that is clearly AI generated is
just put out there to generate

content, preferably clicks and interactions that often aren't coming and generally pollute
our timelines with various different things.

We see regular posts on LinkedIn with people complaining about, you know, the AI generated
content that goes out there that's, you know, supremely unhelpful.

And, know, there was a trade off right back at the start.

People generating thousands and thousands of pages of, you know, meaningless

web content so that hopefully Google would rank them higher.

And of course, these types of things have come back to haunt websites where Google now
de-indexes you if you've generated a boatload of useless content.

Now, of course, there's a trade-off here.

That trade-off is, the content that you can generate using AI both useful from a
consumption perspective but also formatted and looks normal from a...

what our general expectations are as humans because of course whilst a lot of people
interact with AI these days and more and more people are generating things with AI the

consumption of online media is still important that we get you know facts and figures that
we can rely on that make sense and so ensuring like Google's place in the world at the

moment is to try and ensure that that information is

consume properly and index fairly.

And so you see this with all the AI generated stuff.

And as we get further into the world of AI and things become harder to recognize, it's not
to negate the use of AI, but if you're using AI to generate a load of content, to post on

social media sites, you know, it becomes a numbing thing that the interactions and the
quality of those interactions go down.

And so what you see is AI slop.

bots replying to each other and so on.

And there is obviously a place for AI.

Like I use it in generating these podcasts.

I use it for some of the promotional stuff for these podcasts, but I use it sparingly.

And I make sure the interactions I have when it comes to interacting online are actually
like, you know, me as opposed to relying solely on bots.

And I think that's where the disparity comes in because a lot of people don't do that.

But also you see these days,

Everyone looks forward to the Coca-Cola Christmas advert.

This year's though is generated entirely by AI and of course it reduces that cost to get
the thing to market but it sort of disenfranchises the people who are looking forward to

those types of advertisements every year if everything is clearly generated by AI.

I understand the reasons for it, I don't necessarily agree with the reasons for doing it
and so...

When you're generating content with AI, be that posts, website content, images, videos,
the whole lot, just think forward a little bit and say, if you were in the consumer's

shoes or if you were trying to attract interest and referrals to your organization from
somewhere else, would they be happy if all they saw was AI generated content?

If the answer to that question is yes, great.

For the majority of us though, I feel like the answer to that question is no.

And so rather than continuing to pollute the infrasphere that is social media sites and
Google and what have you, just take a step back and consider does this thing really need

to be entirely AI generated?

Can I use AI to help me leverage some of the templates or get the ideas together and then
write it myself?

Can I write it myself and then tweak it using AI?

There's a

Claude or chat GPT or whatever to create that content for you.

See if you can come up with a way to allow it to augment and short, shorten the work that
you have to do whilst also retaining that authenticity, can't say the word, that is you.

It's been the AI Briefing.

Thanks for tuning in.

I'll be back tomorrow with another one.

Bye for now.