Steering Clear of AI Slop

So, you click on a link and you see a picture of somebody preaching to you about something. Is it really that person, or is it just some artificial intelligence (AI) generated slop? I have been duped several times by news that I hoped was true.

With TV, there is a channel number. With You-Tube, there is a logo in a lower corner with a picture and a name for a channel. When I find an interesting sight that is new to me, I often take a snippet of the logo and channel name and paste it into a document for future reference, adding comments, so I can keep from being fooled repeatedly by the same slop vendor.

If there is only a still picture of the speaker but no video, ask yourself, why no video? Probably to save web hosting costs.

A genuine "Breaking News" site is more likely to be able to afford to show you a video. A genuine charitable site is probably highly likely to want to save money.

They say you should stick with reputable news outlets for your news. Like PBS, NBC, BBC, etc. How boring!

If you can't tell the Pope from a slop vendor, try Vatican.va! Lots and lots of slop vendors target the Pope.

If they want you to subscribe, take note of how many subscribers they have. Slop may have 1,000 or more subscribers. On the other hand, at the time of this writing, PBS News Hour has MILLIONS of subscribers.

Thinking MAY save you time! Then again, it may be extremely dangerous!

If you want a really thoughtful discussion of this topic, go to PBS.org and search for AI Slop.

Niel DeGrass Tyson's podcast STAR TALK, has an episode "How to Tell What's Real Online." Try copying this link and pasting it into your browser:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4I_hOz_MLw&t=76s