Where Facebook's AI Slop Comes From

Gyan Abhishek is standing in front of a giant touch screen, like Jim Cramer on Mad Money or an ESPN talking head analyzing a football play. He’s flicking through a Facebook feed of viral, AI-generated images.

“The post you are seeing now is of a poor man that is being used to generate revenue,” he says in Hindi, pointing with his pen to an image of a skeletal elderly man hunched over being eaten by hundreds of bugs. “The Indian audience is very emotional. After seeing photos like this, they Like, Comment and share them. So you too should create a page like this, upload photos and make money through Performance bonus.” 

He scrolls through the page, titled “Anita Kumari,” which has 112,000 followers and almost exclusively posts images of emaciated, AI-generated people, natural disasters, and starving children. He pauses on another image of a man being eaten by bugs. “They are getting so many likes,” he says. “They got 700 likes within 2-4 hours. They must have earned $100 from just this one photo. Facebook now pays you $100 for 1,000 likes … you must be wondering where you can get these images from. Don’t worry. I’ll show you how to create images with the help of AI.”

He taps over to a Facebook page called “Dream Home,” which has 113,000 followers and consists of AI generated homes that look like roosters, giraffes, horses, and hummingbirds, poor Black children, and wood carvings. “The most amazing thing is that all the traffic is from abroad, mainly the US,” he says. “And as you know, with traffic from the USA your CPM [cost per 1,000 views, an ad-revenue metric] will be very high. So even with fewer views, the income you generate will be higher. ” He points to a giant house that looks like a mushroom: “People find things like this very attractive. The more unique the thing you show the audience, the more engagement.” 

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