Want Less AI Slop? Stop Looking at AI Slop.

Got to admit, the first comment visible on this AI slop Facebook profile asks a fair question.

The answer is likely in the rest of the question posed: It's highly likely the entire account is AI-generated and run by bots, no humans involved. They're in it not for the history, nor for the discussion, but for the clicks and any resultant revenue the clicks bring.

I understand the frustration these sites bring. I comment randomly on obvious scam posts, and though my comments are delightfully snarky, the engagement the comments offers is exactly what the posters want. The more comments, the more traffic the posts get, the more money they earn.

Thus the rise of AI slop. Nevermind if the text is accurate -- it's likely it is, but that's not what is going to engage the reader. Readers will stop and look at a photograph, and if it's obvious AI slop like this -- grok the tail of the plane appearing in the center of the aircraft -- the natural response is to stop and engage in a rage over the AI slop. We become part of the chum machine, earning these people microsopic bits of revenue that, over time, help these people earn a living.

Again, this is an excellent reminder that on Facebook, the product is *us*. Our clicks and pauses and comments is what they want. Yes, even the pauses. If we pause over something, the algorithm notices and uses those pauses to offer up more like content, to get us to pause even longer.

And this is the future, to the seers and prognosticators. That's what they want us to do. I'm getting tired of it.

The only solution, of course, is to aggressively block the AI slop shops. It's a constant whack-a-mole game, because when I block one, two more pop up. And the blocking effect lasts only temporary, because what matters most to the algorithms is the collective pause, the collective traffic, not what individual accounts block. This is anecdotal, but I have noticed that I can spend an aggressive fifteen minutes blocking one evening, and the feed clears, only for the same kind of slop to appear in my feed the next day.

But I gotta admit, looking at AI slop, particularly this fanciful bomber impacting a fanciful Empire State Building, is like driving past a car wreck. You can't help but look.