With ‘AI slop’ distorting our reality, the world is sleepwalking into disaster | Nesrine Malik

There are entire YouTube videos of made-up scenarios in which Trump officials prevail against liberal forces.

The White House account on X jumped on a trend of creating images in Studio Ghibli style.

The impulse behind this politicisation of AI is not new; it is simply an extension of traditional propaganda.

What is new is how democratised and ubiquitous it has become, and how it involves no real people.

Everything starts to feel both too real and entirely unreal, says Nesrine Malik .

The sense of urgency and action that our crisis-torn world should inspire is instead blunted by how information is presented.

Even when content is deeply serious, it is presented as entertainment or, as an intermission, in a sort of visual elevator music.