The article from CNET explains how the rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI) — especially generative AI tools that automatically produce written content — is degrading the quality of information on the internet, a phenomenon some critics call “AI slop.” Unlike traditional spam or low-quality clickbait, AI-generated content can look convincing and well-written at first glance but often lacks depth, accuracy, and original insight. This flood of superficial text, experts warn, is overwhelming search engines, social platforms, and even niche communities, making it harder for users to find trustworthy, human-crafted information.
A major concern highlighted in the article is how search engines and content platforms struggle to distinguish between genuinely useful content and automatically generated fluff. As AI tools churn out millions of articles, blog posts, and summaries — often spun from existing sources — the signal-to-noise ratio deteriorates. Even when the content isn’t outright false, it can be vague, repetitive, or derivative, filling pages with words that don’t actually help the reader. This flood of AI output can crowd out expert voices, diminish specialised blogs, and erode the overall usefulness of online search results.
In response to the problem, a growing set of activists, technologists, and researchers are pushing back. Some are developing new standards and technical tools to detect AI-generated content and flag it for users or platforms. Others are advocating for search ranking changes that prioritise human-created sources with verified expertise. There are also calls for greater transparency from companies that deploy generative AI — for example, clearly labelling content as machine-generated and implementing quality thresholds before publication.
Despite these efforts, the challenge remains formidable. As AI models continue to improve and become more accessible, so does the volume of generated text — from auto-generated business descriptions to rewritten articles and SEO farms. Defenders of the open internet argue that without meaningful strategies to preserve quality over quantity, valuable knowledge and niche communities may be drowned out by generic, AI-produced content that offers little real benefit to users. The fight over AI-driven content quality, the article suggests, is central to the future health of the web itself.
