紐時賞析／受夠AI垃圾內容？科技巨頭也是

Sick of AI Slop? So Are Tech Giants.

受夠AI垃圾內容？科技巨頭也是

The worst of artificial intelligence slop has sprawled across tech platforms, cheapening meaningful content and polluting the information ecosystem, as chatbots and video generators continue to advance.

隨著聊天機器人和影片生成工具持續進步，最糟糕的AI垃圾內容已蔓延到各大平台，稀釋有意義內容的價值，也汙染整個資訊環境。

Now, Silicon Valley wants to take out the trash.

如今，矽谷要開始清理這些垃圾內容。

Spotify said it removed 75 million bulk uploads, duplicate songs and other “spammy” tracks last year. LinkedIn said in July that “AI slop is a top priority for all of us” and developed a button for users to report it. Researchers from YouTube’s parent company, Google, described how a video service wiped 130,000 channels of low-quality content off its platform over six months.

Spotify表示，去年刪除了7500萬個大量上傳、重複歌曲及其他「垃圾訊息式」音樂檔案。LinkedIn在7月表示，「AI垃圾內容是我們所有人的首要處理事項」，並開發按鈕讓使用者檢舉這類內容。YouTube母公司Google的研究人員則說明，一家影片服務在6個月內，如何從平台清除13萬個充斥低品質內容的頻道。

Across the internet, tech companies are undertaking a generative waste detox, overwhelmed in many cases by the same slop first made possible by their own AI tools. Mobile messaging apps, restaurant review sites, scholarly archives and dating services are all rooting out or downplaying junk generated by AI — many relying on the same technology to pull off the purge.

整個網路都在進行一場生成式內容排毒。許多科技公司已被自家AI工具最初製造的垃圾內容淹沒，如今正努力清理這些東西。行動通訊App、餐廳評論網站、學術資料庫和交友服務，都在設法找出或降低AI生成垃圾內容的曝光；其中許多平台還依靠同樣的AI技術完成清理工作。

People are tiring of AI’s effect on the environment and its pressure on jobs and mental health. AI slop is just another “festering wound,” said Aidan Walker, a content creator and researcher studying online trends for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a global affairs think tank.

人們逐漸厭倦AI對環境的影響，以及對工作和心理健康的壓力。全球事務智庫卡內基國際和平基金會的內容創作者兼網路趨勢研究員沃克說，AI垃圾內容只是另一道「化膿的傷口」。

Generative AI can produce increasingly realistic images, audio and videos, but only some of it qualifies as slop. Tech companies are largely targeting the kind of low-grade clickbait that is easy to make, spread, consume and forget — the fast fashion edging out couture, the pink slime subsuming the steak.

生成式AI可以製作愈來愈逼真的圖片、音訊和影片，但只有部分內容算得上垃圾內容。科技公司主要鎖定的是這類低劣的誘餌內容：容易製作、容易散播、容易消費，也容易被遺忘。這些內容就像快時尚排擠高級訂製服，也像廉價肉泥淹沒真正有品質的牛排。

Many tech companies now trying to manage AI slop are also the ones enabling it. In July, Meta promised to support a European pact to make AI-generated content more identifiable via detection, labeling and tagging. That same month, the company also released an image generator that automatically opted in public Instagram accounts as a reference for the tool. (Meta removed the feature after three days of backlash.)

如今，許多試圖管理AI垃圾內容的科技公司，同時也是讓這些內容大量出現的平台。Meta在7月承諾支持一項歐洲協議，透過偵測、標示和加註標籤，讓使用者更容易辨認AI生成內容。同月，Meta也推出一款圖片生成工具，並自動把公開Instagram帳號納入參考資料。這項功能引發反彈後，Meta在3天後將它撤下。

“AI slop is a double-edged sword in that a lot of these platforms experienced upticks in engagement as a result of it,” said Paul Shovlin, an expert in AI at Ohio University. “But then, it got to a point where it became a liability because there’s so much flotsam and jetsam that it’s now hard for users to find the kind of quality that they’re looking for.”

俄亥俄大學AI專家蕭夫林說：「AI垃圾內容是把雙面刃，因為許多平台確實提高了使用者互動率。但後來，這些內容多到成為負擔。如今，網路上充斥大量漂流物和廢棄物，使用者很難找到自己真正想要的高品質內容。」

文／Tiffany Hsu，譯／國際中心

說文解字看新聞

【張佑生】

作者不是說所有AI生成內容都是垃圾，而是擔心那些低成本、大量製造、容易獲得點擊，卻會逐漸排擠原創與高品質作品的內容。

Information ecosystem是一個概念性詞組，專門指資訊生產、傳播、接收與判斷所形成的整體環境。參與者包括：新聞媒體、社群平台、政府與公共機構、研究者、內容創作者、一般使用者、搜尋引擎與推薦演算法。它比媒體含意更廣，比網路更強調資訊如何流動及彼此影響。

The fast fashion edging out couture, the pink slime subsuming the steak.這是全段最有修辭性的部分。作者用兩組食衣比喻，將AI垃圾內容與高品質內容的關係具體化。edge out不是猛烈摧毀，而是逐漸把對方擠到邊緣，取而代之。高品質內容在大量廉價內容競爭下，逐漸失去可見度與市場空間。

Subsume比consume更抽象，比destroy更複雜。被subsumed的東西可能沒有完全消失，但已被更大的系統吸收，難以維持原本的獨立地位。

Couture對應的是耗費時間與專業製作的高品質內容，steak在這裡象徵完整、具實質價值、經過挑選與準備的內容。快時尚給人的印象是：大量、快速、便宜；粉紅肉泥讓人聯想到：加工、廉價、缺乏完整性。