People will argue that if a shortform video is human made or AI generated it doesn't matter, it's domamine-triggering filler either way.

But I do think that the parasocial relationships and discovering new influencers is a big part of the hook for many people, and taking that away may cause many to have a "what the hell am I even watching" moment.

It's easier to justify the addiction when it feels like you're "hanging out with a friend." When content is AI generated from concept to production, it's just...talking pixel soup.

I dunno. AI slop could become digital fentanyl.

A large number of extremely smart people are being paid ungodly amounts of money to enhance the addictiveness of AI output. I'm not optimistic about them failing.

We never bet against extremely smart people on HN. Extremely smart people not actively shaping the world would be a true travesty to revolt against, not simply post angry comment-content into the void.

Oh I am. In the end they are just doing what somebody else much more stupid than them is telling them to do. That limits how much damage they can do.

Not really? It’s incredibly easy to run an A/B test targeting hundreds of thousands of users to test hypothesis and refine your eventual feature. All these eventually add up. And honestly, the upper management is pretty smart too.

Yea, I really don't get the idealism from some that say "the billionaires are going to fail any minute now" when the problem keeps getting worse and there is no end in sight.

The only winning move is not to play.

First I removed the Instagram app from my phone, because it was full of dark patterns meant to keep users scrolling.

Endless reposted stories from people you follow, endless suggested posts when you ran out of posts from people you actually know, and then the slop bucket known as reels. I found myself sucked in too often.

I used the web app version on my phone for a bit, which has a lot fewer dark patterns, but eventually I ditched that too because I found myself checking it out of habit.

Now I still have a login on my desktop browser, because for whatever reason some businesses insist on only sharing hours/menus etc via an Instagram post. But I'm close to pulling the plug on Instagram altogether.

Is there an xcancel equivalent for Instagram that lets me bypass the login wall in a pinch?

I also added a ublock origin filter list for tuning out social media distractions. Now my YouTube and Reddits are essentially blank feeds - no suggested posts, stories or recommendations.

https://github.com/BevizLaszlo/UBlock-Filters-for-Social-Med...

I re-installed the Instagram app recently because a few too many things I wanted to see (events, restaurants) only had an Instagram link :(

What I found is that sometime betweent the last time I used it and now they add a "Following" button at the top center. If I click that the moment I start the app then I get nothing but posts from people I'm following. If I forget then I get random shit they're trying to addict me to. At least, at the moment, I have the option to just see my friends.

X is the same. There's a "home" feed and a "following" feed at the top. The moment I open it I pick "following" and then I only see people I follow.

I don't use either of them all that much but I'm happy that, at least for now. It's possible to use them without the slop.

That said, I know everyone else had this experience but the Facebook app has finally hit too low of a signal to noise ratio for me. For some reason to the end of 2025 I got very little non-friend posts. As of 2026 is about 3 to 2 crap I didn't ask for >:(

Perhaps you meant 'upside' .. if so, well played.

Nothing will happen to it. Someone will eventually complete the loop between slop generators to human reward systems to turn the first order derivative of content supply back up to pre-COVID levels.

It certainly offers strong motivation, in my experience, to revisit or commit to analog based hobbies. Recently I did a sewing class at a library. I’ve got a watercolor painting kit for about $30 all in and - as this article indicates - seeking info by surfing the web to use the web as a benefit, well I do recommend it.

There still is plenty of information superhighway infrastructure online - more than ever! It’s a matter of disengaging from the AI “slop trough” as I like to call it. Good article framing the discussion.

For a few perhaps. I finally got mad enough at facebook slop to quit checking every day. I still have an account, but check it maybe once a month if I think of it (generally because my kids do something cute and I want to share the photo with my family). I don't want to see the right/left wing "you need to be outraged about this evil thing the left/right wing just did" (both sides do it, if you don't see it either you need a more diverse group of friends, or you are not honest about people you mostly agree with). There is value in facebook, but it is at most 5 minutes per day - and that doesn't pay their bill so they want the slop.

Of course I lose the most from the above. There are a number of events that are only spread on facebook and so I don't find out about them. Facebook has mostly replaced craigslist.