--- title: "The Entire Internet Is Being Polluted by AI Slop" description: "AI slop riddles practically every corner of the internet. Just look at Facebook, or what's become of Pinterest. But what about AI-written text? It may not be as flagrantly, well, insane, as AI images, but it's out there. Now, in a new study which is yet to be peer-reviewed, a team of researchers from Stanford University say they've managed to estimate how much writing floating around the web is the work of an AI model by analyzing over 300 million documents, including press releases, consumer complaints, and job postings. \"We wanted to quantify how many people are using these tools,\" […]" date: "2025-03-11" modified: "2025-03-11" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/internet-polluted-ai-slop" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "chatgpt" - "generative ai" --- # The Entire Internet Is Being Polluted by AI Slop ![From press releases to job postings: an alarming percentage of them are AI slop written by a large language model, according to new research.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* AI slop has made its way into practically every corner of the internet. Just look [at Facebook](), or [what's become of Pinterest](). But what about AI-written text? It may not be as flagrantly [bonkers]() as AI images, but it's also started to permeate the web. In a [new study]() that's yet to be peer-reviewed, a team of researchers from Stanford University say they've managed to estimate how much writing floating around the web is the work of an AI model — and all it took was analyzing over 300 million documents, including press releases, consumer complaints, and job postings. "We wanted to quantify how many people are using these tools," study coauthor Yaohui Zhang, a Stanford researcher, [told *Fast Company*](). Zhang's team found that after the release of ChatGPT in November 2022, the proportion of text that was generated or modified by LLMs in all those categories skyrocketed. With corporate press releases, for example, the number jumped from around 2 to 3 percent to around 24 percent by late 2023. To identify AI facsimiles, the researchers used a statistical framework that analyzed texts written before the release of ChatGPT, looking for patterns such as word frequencies. Their detection model worked admirably well, they report, with a prediction error consistently lower than 3.3 percent. "While some previous work used commercial software to detect such patterns, these studies often \[have\] been constrained to single domains, relied on black-box commercial AI detectors, or analyzed relatively small datasets," the researchers wrote. Their statistical framework revealed a trend similar in all the examined sectors. Approximately 18 percent of financial consumer complaints appear to be at least in part generated with AI. In job postings on [LinkedIn](), the share was up 10 percent for small firms, with newer companies exhibiting even higher rates of in part AI use. Even UN press releases showed a marked uptick to 14 percent being LLM-generated or assisted — a clear sign of the "growing institutional adoption of AI for regulatory, policy, and public outreach efforts," the researchers wrote. "Our study shows the emergence of a new reality in which firms, consumers and even international organizations substantially rely on generative AI for communications," the researchers added. Generally, Zhang and his team found that AI adoption followed the same pattern: a three to four month "lag" following ChatGPT's release — the calm before the storm — and then a surge of usage. This growth stabilized by late 2023 and kept a steady course in 2024. That could be a sign of AI slop hitting a saturation point — or more insidiously, becoming too subtle to detect, the researchers suggest. "I think \[generative AI\] is somehow constraining the creativity of humans," Zhang told *Fast Company*. **More on AI:** *[Google Announces "AI Mode" For Search Results That Only Shows You AI Slop]()* ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()