Mark Zuckerberg’s AI Slop Will Make Ads Creepier and Worse
As Meta grabs for more control over how companies talk to customers, the rest of us may be left flooded in more algorithmic mediocrity.
Meta Platforms Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg.
Photographer: Vincent Feuray/Hans Lucas/AFP/Getty Images
Shrimp Jesus until now has been one of the internet's strangest artificial-intelligence fever dreams. The likeness of the Christian figurehead fused with crustaceans started going viral on Facebook last year, epitomizing the rise of “AI slop” or images generated by tools like ChatGPT, graphics that millions of social media users have inexplicably liked and shared. Mark Zuckerberg has lapped it up. In recent months, he’s given a string of podcast interviews describing social feeds that will be filled with AI content and AI friends. And fueling this synthetic future will be AI ads, according to the Wall Street Journal, which reported Monday that Meta Platforms Inc. will offer tools for advertisers to create ads with artificial intelligence, corroborating Zuckerberg’s own hints on the matter. One day, Shrimp Jesus might try to pitch you on a local seafood restaurant.
This has set off palpitations at ad agencies. Who needs the expertise of today’s Mad Men if Meta’s tools not only target users but also do all the creative work of building adverts from scratch? Shares in WPP Plc, a British advertising giant, fell 3% in London trading on Monday after the Journal published its report and remained flat on Tuesday in a rising stock market.