We Hate AI Slop (gauthamsk.substack.com)

Meta announced Vibes, a short-form AI-generated video feed on meta.ai, prompting backlash that the stream amounts to “AI slop” — low-effort, soulless content. The author tested the feed and found rapid disengagement, arguing that surface fixes like personalization (Meta plans to re-rank using Instagram/Facebook interest profiles and reports better A/B test engagement) won’t solve deeper problems. Current video-generation models (Veo, Sora, etc.) are improving fast but still suffer technical flaws—temporal inconsistency, broken physics/shadows, and anatomical hallucinations—that trigger an uncanny-valley reaction and make near-real videos feel jarring. Beyond technical quality, the piece argues a more fundamental cultural reason people reject mass AI-generated feeds: the absence of human effort and narrative. Using chess as an analogy, viewers prefer human rivalry and story even when engines outperform people; similarly, audiences value creator backstories, craft, and personality. Even if models soon produce indistinguishable videos, the marketplace of attention may reward “human-generated” or anthropomorphized AI creators differently, reshaping creator economies, authenticity norms, and content value. Vibes will be an early test case for how personalization, technical fidelity, and storytelling converge to determine whether AI video becomes addictive entertainment or disposable “slop.”