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← Dossier: AI slop

AI slop resources

Everything worth keeping in one place: the articles that actually explain the flood, a printable field guide you can hand to someone who still forwards generated recipes, and the daily doses where we make fun of all of it.

Free download · PDF · 2 pages

AI Slop — Field Guide

The ten-second slop test, six places slop hides, a seven-day de-slop protocol, and three rules if you publish. No email, no account, free to print and share.

Download the guide (PDF) ↓

The selection

Eight sources, no affiliate links, no course to buy. Read three and you will already spot slop faster than most newsrooms.

  1. 01 · Simon Willison's Weblog

    Slop is the new spam

    The post that popularised the word. Short, precise, and useful as a working definition: unrequested, unreviewed AI content pushed at people.

  2. 02 · Cory Doctorow — Pluralistic

    Enshittification

    The economics under the slop: platforms degrade the thing users came for once they are locked in. Slop is what fills the space left behind.

  3. 03 · Google Search Central

    Google's own guidance on scaled content abuse

    Read what the largest distributor of slop officially forbids. It is also the clearest published description of the tactics being used.

  4. 04 · Poynter

    How to spot AI-generated images

    Practical fact-checking habits: reverse image search, provenance, and why the classic tells (hands, text, reflections) keep shifting.

  5. 05 · TinEye

    Reverse image search, no account needed

    First reflex when an image feels too convenient. If it appears nowhere before yesterday, treat it as generated until proven otherwise.

  6. 06 · Content Authenticity Initiative

    Content Credentials (C2PA)

    Check whether a file carries provenance metadata. Absence proves nothing; presence occasionally saves you an argument.

  7. 07 · Center for Humane Technology

    Take Control

    Non-commercial, no upsell. The best free starting point for cutting the feed back down to a human size.

  8. 08 · The Markup

    The Markup / investigative tech reporting

    Human reporting on algorithms, with methodology published. A good calibration sample for what non-slop reads like.

From the blog

The satirical side of the same subject — 4 recent doses filed under slop.

Aug 27, 2026#96

My Thumb Just Keeps Scrolling

I open the app, my thumb flickers, and the AI slop keeps refreshing forever. Is this infinite feed an entertainment product, or a sophisticated attention trap?

#doomscrolling#ai-slop#attention
Aug 12, 2026#83

All Art Is Prompt Art Now

I used to make things, but managing an AI model’s output is so much more fulfilling. Is your pathetic human creativity still getting in the way?

#art#creativity#ai-slop
Jun 22, 2026#42

My Hands Forgot How to Draw

My new AI muse spits out a thousand masterpieces a minute, so why do I feel like a fraud who has forgotten how to hold a pen?

#creative atrophy#ai art#creator economy
May 15, 2026#13

Creative Atrophy: Every Artist a Curator of Slop

We've traded the messy struggle of creation for the clean, instant hit of the prompt. The imagination muscle is wasting away, and we're celebrating the decay.

#creative atrophy#ai art#generative ai

All doses tagged #ai-slop →