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AI Slop Is Polluting the Web. Jon Gillham Called It, and Now John Oliver Has Too.

In Last Week Tonight, John Oliver indirectly quoted Originality.ai CEO Jon Gillham, highlighting that AI slop is drawing major media attention.

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For a while now, it’s felt like certain corners of the internet are drowning in low-effort, AI-generated content, and it’s finally getting the mainstream attention it deserves.

At Originality.ai, we’ve been tracking this trend for quite some time now, and our founder Jon Gillham even referenced it last year in an interview.

Now, given its launch into the mainstream after Last Week Tonight with John Oliver picked up on the same theme, and indirectly quoted Jon Gillham (more on that below), we thought it best to assess what the phrase ‘AI slop’ really means.

Find out what AI slop is, and why it should be something any publisher, marketer, and SEO professional is aware of. 

Key Takeaways (TL;DR)

  • In an April 2024 interview with The Register, Jon Gillham stated, “Not all AI Content is spam, but I think right now all spam is AI content.
  • John Oliver recently spotlighted the issue of AI spam and AI slop in Last Week Tonight, reinforcing the growing mainstream concern, and indirectly quoting Gillham in the segment, “Not all AI content is spam, but … right now all spam is AI content.
  • “AI slop” describes low-quality, mass-generated AI content lacking originality or value.
    • AI slop harms SEO, trust, and brand credibility, especially when published without oversight.
  • Originality.ai offers tools to detect AI-generated content and help publishers maintain quality and transparency.

Looking for a quick overview of the Last Week Tonight segment featuring Jon Gillham’s (indirect) quote? Watch the video below:

What Is “AI Slop”?

First off, what does the term ‘AI Slop’ actually mean? The term AI slop describes the wave of low-quality, AI-generated content that is currently flooding the internet. 

The content is technically readable, even SEO-optimized in some cases, but generated at scale. As a result, it completely lacks any originality, any depth, or any human insight.

Basically, it’s incredibly bland. 

It may not be obvious to everyone at first, but once you’re a few paragraphs in and you realize the content has skirted around the subject at best, you’ll quickly notice it’s AI-generated with minimal additional effort added to the piece.

As Jon mentioned last year, in an interview published with The Register, "What's clear right now is that there's no one spamming Google [that's] not doing it with AI."

This has created an internet filled with “AI Slop,” an endless buffet of fast-food content. Easy to make, cheap to consume, and unhealthy for the internet’s ecosystem.

At Originality.ai, we define AI slop as ‘mass-produced, machine-generated content that adds volume, not value.’

Why is ‘AI Slop’ spreading?

So, why’s it spreading if it’s so bland and forgettable? Well, in simple terms, it’s a combination of time-saving and opportunity.

The sudden accessibility of large language models (such as ChatGPT) has allowed marketers, publishers, and SEOs to scale content in a way that wasn’t conceivable even five years ago.

For those who believe the best results on search come from producing more content, these tools are then used to produce thousands of ‘SEO-friendly’ blogs at scale, in the hope of improving brand authority and search rankings, therefore improving traffic and conversions.

However, this isn’t 2015. The SEO landscape has drastically changed since then, and it now takes a lot more than a few articles with keywords stuffed into them to perform well on Google.

Not only that, but LLMs can only repurpose what they already know, meaning it is never able to formulate new ideas, insightful perspectives, and offer anything of true value to the reader.

Not all AI Content is spam, but I think right now all spam is AI content.” - Jon Gillham

As a longtime publisher, SEO strategist, and entrepreneur himself, Jon saw the trend emerging early: AI tools were enabling a race to the bottom in content production.

While others were celebrating scale, Jon was asking what happens when the internet is flooded with unoriginal, untrustworthy content?

In an interview with The Register on April 13, 2024, Jon said, “Not all AI content is spam, but I think right now all spam is AI content.” 

These concerns around AI spam and AI slop and its broader impacts were brought up again in his conversation with the AI Marketing Navigator, expressing the impact this may have if left unchecked: 

“If Google’s search results are filled with nothing but AI-generated content, then why would people go to Google? Why wouldn’t they go to the AI that generated that content?” (2:30 mark)

Jon has also backed up these words with meaningful actions. 

At Originality.ai under his leadership, we have responded to this growing threat by building industry-leading AI detection software, allowing people to detect AI-generated content before it pollutes search results or damages publisher trust.

AI Slop Goes Primetime on Last Week Tonight

In a recent episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver took aim at the rise of generative AI and AI slop.

Oliver speaks on the wave of low-quality AI-generated content or “AI slop,” stating, “AI Slop is basically the newest iteration of spam.” (3:24 mark)

Then, Oliver goes on to say moments later, “As the CEO of one AI content detection platform put it, ‘Not all AI content is spam, but … right now all spam is AI content.’ ” (3:26 mark)

This mirrors Jon’s original quote from The Register, almost word for word (noted earlier in this article), echoing a warning he has been making for several years now.

John Oliver isn’t just known for making subjects funny. He also makes them real to millions of his viewers. 

His commentary reflects what Jon has long been saying: this is a mainstream problem that affects digital trust, search quality, and public knowledge.

It also highlights that these issues aren’t just related to publishing; there are also cultural and societal impacts.

Our Perspective? Stay Transparent. Stop the AI Slop.

At Originality.ai, you’d be forgiven for thinking that we are anti-AI, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. 

We aren’t for or against AI-generated content… but believe in transparency and accountability in its development, use, and detection, as noted in our AI detection accuracy study.

Artificial intelligence has a role to play in the content production process, but only when used correctly and transparently.

The danger is the impact that using AI tools to flood the internet with AI slop will have.

That’s why Originality.ai helps publishers, marketers, and agencies maintain editorial standards (including transparency around what is and is not AI-generated content) in an AI-assisted digital world.

Our AI software allows you to know whether your content is getting flagged as human or AI. This gives publishers confidence that the articles they are publishing are truly unique.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully, this recent mainstream attention is the start of a bigger wave, and we can begin truly discussing the impacts of reckless AI usage.

It’s a mainstream concern, and one that is shaping how users, platforms, and audiences evaluate trust online.

Maintain transparency and produce content your audience truly wants to read with unique insights, research, and perspectives. 

Then, if you’re not sure whether something you’re reading was human-written or AI-generated, use the best-in-class Originality.ai AI Checker.

Get more insight on AI and AI detection:

Madeleine Lambert

Madeleine Lambert

Madeleine Lambert is the Director of Marketing and Sales at Originality.ai, with over a decade of experience in SEO and content creation. She previously owned and operated a successful content marketing agency, which she scaled and exited. Madeleine specializes in digital PR—contact her for media inquiries and story collaborations.

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Originality.ai did a fantastic job on all three prompts, precisely detecting them as AI-written. Additionally, after I checked with actual human-written textual content, it did determine it as 100% human-generated, which is important.

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Jon Gillham, Founder of Originality.ai came up with a tool to detect whether the content is written by humans or AI tools. It’s built on such technology that can specifically detect content by ChatGPT-3 — by giving you a spam score of 0-100, with an accuracy of 94%.

Felix Rose-Collins

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ChatGPT lacks empathy and originality. It’s also recognized as AI-generated content most of the time by plagiarism and AI detectors like Originality.ai

Ashley Stahl

forbes.com

Originality.ai Do give them a shot! 

Sri Krishna

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For web publishers, Originality.ai will enable you to scan your content seamlessly, see who has checked it previously, and detect if an AI-powered tool was implored.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why is it important to check for plagiarism?

Tools for conducting a plagiarism check between two documents online are important as it helps to ensure the originality and authenticity of written work. Plagiarism undermines the value of professional and educational institutions, as well as the integrity of the authors who write articles. By checking for plagiarism, you can ensure the work that you produce is original or properly attributed to the original author. This helps prevent the distribution of copied and misrepresented information.

What is Text Comparison?

Text comparison is the process of taking two or more pieces of text and comparing them to see if there are any similarities, differences and/or plagiarism. The objective of a text comparison is to see if one of the texts has been copied or paraphrased from another text. This text compare tool for plagiarism check between two documents has been built to help you streamline that process by finding the discrepancies with ease.

How do Text Comparison Tools Work?

Text comparison tools work by analyzing and comparing the contents of two or more text documents to find similarities and differences between them. This is typically done by breaking the texts down into smaller units such as sentences or phrases, and then calculating a similarity score based on the number of identical or nearly identical units. The comparison may be based on the exact wording of the text, or it may take into account synonyms and other variations in language. The results of the comparison are usually presented in the form of a report or visual representation, highlighting the similarities and differences between the texts.

String comparison is a fundamental operation in text comparison tools that involves comparing two sequences of characters to determine if they are identical or not. This comparison can be done at the character level or at a higher level, such as the word or sentence level.

The most basic form of string comparison is the equality test, where the two strings are compared character by character and a Boolean result indicating whether they are equal or not is returned. More sophisticated string comparison algorithms use heuristics and statistical models to determine the similarity between two strings, even if they are not exactly the same. These algorithms often use techniques such as edit distance, which measures the minimum number of operations (such as insertions, deletions, and substitutions) required to transform one string into another.

Another common technique for string comparison is n-gram analysis, where the strings are divided into overlapping sequences of characters (n-grams) and the frequency of each n-gram is compared between the two strings. This allows for a more nuanced comparison that takes into account partial similarities, rather than just exact matches.

String comparison is a crucial component of text comparison tools, as it forms the basis for determining the similarities and differences between texts. The results of the string comparison can then be used to generate a report or visual representation of the similarities and differences between the texts.

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Syntax highlighting is a feature of text editors and integrated development environments (IDEs) that helps to visually distinguish different elements of a code or markup language. It does this by coloring different elements of the code, such as keywords, variables, functions, and operators, based on a predefined set of rules.

The purpose of syntax highlighting is to make the code easier to read and understand, by drawing attention to the different elements and their structure. For example, keywords may be colored in a different hue to emphasize their importance, while comments or strings may be colored differently to distinguish them from the code itself. This helps to make the code more readable, reducing the cognitive load of the reader and making it easier to identify potential syntax errors.

How Can I Conduct a Plagiarism Check between Two Documents Online?

With our tool it’s easy, just enter or upload some text, click on the button “Compare text” and the tool will automatically display the diff between the two texts.

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Using text comparison tools is much easier, more efficient, and more reliable than proofreading a piece of text by hand. Eliminate the risk of human error by using a tool to detect and display the text difference within seconds.

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