--- title: "This “Leaked Photo of Heaven” Went Viral for All the Wrong Reasons" description: "A \"leaked photo of heaven\" has been going mega viral on social media this week, the kind of low-brow AI slop that's already ubiquitous." date: "2025-01-16" modified: "2025-01-16" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-leaked-photo-heaven-viral" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "ai slop" - "facebook" - "the digest" - "viral" --- # This “Leaked Photo of Heaven” Went Viral for All the Wrong Reasons ![A "leaked photo of heaven" has been going mega viral on social media this week, the kind of low-brow AI slop that's already ubiquitous.]() *\Image: Facebook\* ## God's Country A "leaked photo of heaven" has been going mega viral on social media this week. The purported photo shows a half-baked and architecturally unsound city, seemingly carved into a chalky material and set against what appears to be the Milky Way, strongly reminiscent of the "Heaven" called [Urdak]() portrayed in the 2021 video game Doom Eternal. It was a lowbrow and technologically lacking instance of AI slop, but caught the attention of millions of netizens nonetheless. "Leaked photo of heaven is going viral on social media," one X-formerly-Twitter account [wrote in the caption of the photo](), which has been viewed just shy of seven million times on the platform. "No wonder Christians are so determined to get there!" Whether the image was shared with the [intention of making a joke]() about how gullible people keep falling for AI slop on social media or not, the viral post again highlights how oafish AI-generated content is slowly becoming a de facto part of content feeds, in a pervasive flood of dubious and misleading content. And while many were sharing the drek ironically, the idea that somehow a picture of "heaven" was "leaked" by some greater power paints a troubling picture of what some on social are willing to believe. "By far the funniest part of this insane post is that even the maniacs who believe this stuff are so media-pilled they refer to it as a 'leaked photo,'" wrote author Séamas O'Reilly in a [post on Bluesky](). "As if God, CEO of Heaven Studios, had included it in a press kit for awards season, but embargoed it til January 27th." ![]() ## Slop Prize Particularly on Facebook, an online "graveyard" that's already largely [succumbed to an incessant deluge of AI slop](), the same image proved extremely popular. Countless accounts reshared the image with the exact same caption, garnering [hundreds of likes](). Other accounts riffed on the original caption, adding their own two cents. "This place is too small for heaven..." one Facebook user [wrote](). "Looks like the house of Elon Musk to me." While a nonsensical picture of "heaven" isn't likely to mislead many into believing there's a strange asteroid-based structure waiting for them in the afterlife, other AI slop taking over Facebook is proving far more insidious. In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene last year, for instance, AI images that [purported to show the resulting devastation]() made their rounds on Facebook. And it's not just social media. Google has also been [overrun with garbled and nonsensical slop](). Looking on the bright side, at least the depiction in the "leaked photo of heaven" presents an alternative counterpart to America's relentlessly pedestrian-hostile [suburbia that's overreliant on gas-guzzling cars](). "So heaven is a walkable city, got it," one Bluesky account [joked](). **More on AI slop:** *[Behold the AI Slop Dominating Google Image Results for "Does Corn Get Digested"]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()