Actual footage of warfare is horrific enough. But now that AI slop floods every social media feed on the web, we get to experience the trauma and propaganda of war regurgitated from the bowels of generative AI, all in a cynical search for likes and follows.
When generative AI was in its infancy back in 2024, we covered the rise of pandering ultra-patriotic slop on social media. Those posts were crude — an infamous example featured a disabled veteran sitting in a wheelchair, their prosthetic legs stuffed into a single massive combat boot.
Then came the foot fetish content, which simultaneously sexualized military service members while lauding the work of US president Donald Trump.
Today’s generative AI has become much more sophisticated, able to spit out lifelike imagery at a scale that’s hard to fathom. For content farmers — people and groups who spam social media with low-quality posts for money or clout — the advances in AI have unlocked the ability to churn out terabytes worth of wartime clickbait.
