| | What we're reading
Enough with the AI slop
First there was spam, now there is slop.
Slop is a term being used for AI-generated content that hasn’t been given a moment’s thought and is rushed out for a myriad of use cases – most often in an attempt to steal some web traffic.
The cost of doing this is now next to nothing, and the result is that those of us looking for the good stuff have to wade through more… well, slop.
The term was coined at least two years ago or more, when AI imagery began to proliferate, but it has recently been covered by The Guardian, which also uses Jason Koebler’s term ‘zombie internet’.
Social networks are increasingly home to slop, with Koebler describing these spaces as “a mix of bots, humans and accounts that were once humans but aren’t any more mix together to form a disastrous website where there is little social connection at all.”
The NYT takes a brief look at the origin of the word.
Related reading: Training marketers for the era of AI: ‘There’s no point investing in tech’ if we can’t use it
Rise of the generalist
If you’re fretting about the impact of AI on your own skillset as a marketer in these times of synthetic data and robot copywriters, you may find comfort in a new report from the OC Tanner Institute which includes a section on the rise of the generalist.
“The ever-accelerating pace of change in business means organizations need employees who are comfortable navigating uncertainty and who solve problems creatively. Generalists exemplify both.”
What does a generalist look like? Here’s the Generalist Index: Thrives in ambiguity and uncertainty Collaborates with others Connects new ideas across disciplines Desires challenges to skills and thinking Copes with stressful situations Seeks new ways to tackles challenges Desires learning new skillsRelated reading: Building a Digital Culture
ChatGPT appears to hallucinate links to Business Insider
The Insider Union has raised complaints about the fact that, in spite of a major licensing deal signed with OpenAI by Insider parent company Axel Springer, ChatGPT may be “downplaying rather than elevating” their work (Nieman Lab reports).
A letter includes screenshots of the generative AI chatbot failing to cite original reporting from Business Insider, and offering incorrect and seemingly hallucinated URLs, errors that were replicated by Nieman Lab.
In response, OpenAI provided a statement to Nieman Lab that the type of citation its licensing deals have promised is not yet live, calling it "an enhanced experience still in development and not yet available in ChatGPT". This may not alleviate concerns from reporters who feel that they are losing out on visibility and traffic.
In an email to staff, Business Insider CEO Barbara Peng doubled down on the benefits of the partnership, saying that, “One of the many reasons I am so proud of our deal with OpenAI is that it set the precedent that in an SGE [search generative experience] we must be compensated for the use of our work.”
Of note is the fact that the lines are getting even blurrier between search engines and LLM chatbots.
The Google glue-pizza saga continues
It’s rather meta that if you ask Google “how much glue to add to pizza”, an AI overview will provides details of Business Insider’s coverage of Google’s original sketchy recommendations of how to add glue to your pizza to stop cheese sliding off (which seemed to track back to a Reddit comment).
In this instance, the overview arguably does its job, because the likelihood is that the searcher is looking for details on the glue-pizza saga itself (rather than a recipe).
The Verge does however highlight a link with a snippet, below the AI overview, which seems to report the very basics of how to make glue sauce. You get the feeling there’s still a big appetite for trying to trip up SGE in some way.
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How should search marketers respond to Google AI overviews?
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