By: Nick Gambino
While the world has been absolutely giddy about generative AI, there’s no denying our social feeds have been overrun by AI slop. If it wasn’t fast food before, the internet has gone full quantity over quality.
After allowing slop to enter our feeds like a locust horde, companies are starting to acknowledge that maybe it’s gotten away from them. The AInmates are running the asylum. Not a moment too soon, TikTok has just announced they are testing a new feature that lets users control how much of this content they see on their feed.
The new slider tool can be found under “Manage topics.” This is a feature that already exists that allows you to increase or decrease the amount of content you see in a given category. Topics you can manage include Dance, Current Affairs, Food & Drinks, Health & Fitness and a slew of others.
Now they’ve added a topic called “AI-generated content” or AIGC for short. When you slide it toward the left you’ll see less AIGC, and when you slide it to the right, you’ll see more. It’s that simple. We need more controls like this.
I don’t see the generative AI genie being squeezed back into the proverbial lamp, but we can put up guardrails and guide people toward art and truth. I’m not blanketly anti-AI, but I don’t like how irresponsibly people are doctoring and generating videos and photos to spread lies, and how these huge tech companies are just letting it all run rampant on their platforms.
Outside of doctoring the “truth,” we’re also subject to mass-produced digital “art” pumped out at breakneck speed by machines. Smothering human expression under a mountain of AI slop is not going to bode well for these platforms going forward. The novelty will wear off, but the stink of AI won’t.
So good on TikTok for adding a way to reduce AI slop on our feeds.
Might I suggest opening your TikTok app, going to “Manage topics” and sliding the “AI-generated content” slider all the way to the left.
