How I learned to stop worrying and love AI slop

If I were to locate the moment slop broke through into popular consciousness, I’d pick the video of rabbits bouncing on a trampoline that went viral. For many savvy internet users, myself included, it was the first time we were fooled by an AI video, and it ended up spawning a wave of almost identical riffs, with people making videos of all kinds of animals and objects bouncing on the same trampoline. My first reaction was that, broadly speaking, all of this sucked. That’s become a familiar refrain, in think pieces and at dinner parties. Everything online is slop now—the internet “enshittified,” with AI taking much of the blame. Initially, I largely agreed, quickly scrolling past every AI video in a futile attempt to send a message to my algorithm. But then friends started sharing AI clips in group chats that were compellingly weird, or funny. Some even had a grain of brilliance buried in the nonsense. I had to admit I didn’t fully understand what I was rejecting—what I found so objectionable. To try to get to the bottom of how I felt (and why), I recently spoke to the people making the videos, a company creating bespoke tools for creators, and experts who study how new media becomes culture.

[Caiwei Chen is a China reporter at MIT Technology Review.]