Why the internet’s drowning in fake content « Euro Weekly News

AI and Baby Peacocks: A Growing Internet Problem

on the left, a baby peacock. on the right, an AI-generated baby peacock.

AI vs. Reality: On the left, we have a real baby peacock, on the right, we have… whatever THAT is.

The internet, once a majestic place full of useful information, is now plagued with AI-generated content—case in point, the bizarre wave of fake baby peacock images.

But don’t worry, it’s not like AI is trying to turn us all into birdwatchers; it’s only seriously undermining our ability to trust anything we see online.

What does a baby peacock actually look like?

For those not knee-deep in Google searches about peacock offspring, a real baby peacock looks more like a quail than a feather-duster. However, thanks to the wonderful world of artificial intelligence, the internet is awash with baby white and rainbow-hued peafowls. These charming little fabrications are leading a visual misinformation revolution that only exacerbates an already overwhelming digital landscape.

The rise of AI-generated ‘slop’

Enter ‘slop’—the new term for the flood of junk content created by AI. Like spam, but somehow worse, slop exists to fill space and rack up views. This digital junkmail isn’t just confusing us poor humans, it’s making search engines and social media platforms absolutely useless. Imagine trying to learn something useful, like how to fix your sink, but instead being bombarded by AI-generated content about penguin plumbing experts.

Google, we’ve got a problem

Shockingly (not), search engines aren’t handling this well. Look up “baby peacock” on Google, and you’ll be greeted with a colourful circus of AI hallucinations. The irony? Google itself is meant to filter this stuff out. But here we are, drowning in a sea of false feathers. It’s so bad, people are turning to the search engine DuckDuckGo, hoping to escape the visual misinformation apocalypse.

Slop in action: the real-world consequences

The slop doesn’t stop with cute animal pictures. During recent hurricanes, AI-generated content led to misinformation that hindered emergency services. So, while AI dreams up imaginary peacock babies, it’s also wasting precious resources in actual crises. It’s one thing to laugh at a neon bird, but quite another when lives are at stake.

AI’s threat to information integrity

This rise of AI-generated slop is more than just an inconvenience; it threatens the very core of how we consume information. As AI advances, the line between real and artificial becomes increasingly blurred. In a world already struggling with misinformation, AI-generated content is amplifying the problem, pushing us further into a post-truth era. If we can’t trust the images we see or the articles we read, the internet will transform from a knowledge hub to an engine of confusion. It’s not just about baby peacocks anymore—it’s about safeguarding truth itself.

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Written by

Nina Cook

Nina Cook is a writer, editor, and literary translator, born in England and raised in New Zealand. In 2015 she fell under the spell of coastal Almería, where she continues to cultivate her love for language and literature. Follow her on X: @esoledit

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