We're in our AI slop era

Summary

Podcast Summary: "We're in our AI Slop Era"

Podcast: Today, Explained
Host: Sean Rameswaram
Guest: Hayden Field, Senior AI Reporter at The Verge
Date: October 7, 2025

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Overview

This episode dives into the explosion of "AI slop"—AI-generated content aimed at maximizing engagement with minimal quality control. Sean Rameswaram (host) and Hayden Field (The Verge) explore the proliferation of such content on new platforms by Meta and OpenAI, and what it means for our ability to trust what we see online. The team also plays a game to test their own ability to discern real from AI-generated video, sharing practical tips for listeners to do the same.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. AI Slop: Definition and Pervasiveness

[02:04–03:19]

• Definition:
  • "Slop to me, AI slop... is just any form of AI generated content that's designed to keep you scrolling and keep you consuming and coming back for more." — Hayden Field [02:04]
  • Examples: Infinite scrolling AI video platforms, AI-generated blog posts with endless, unnecessary subsections.
• Intent: Little intentionality or creativity—just content for consumption’s sake.
• Pervasiveness:
  • “We’ve never been in an era with more AI slop.” — Hayden Field [03:23]

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2. Platforms Fueling the Slop Era: Meta & OpenAI

Meta’s ‘Vibes’ App
[04:13–06:54]

• Designed to keep users hooked on AI-generated video: mostly animals, blobs, or cute, forgettable content.
• “It was the kind of stuff I would expect to see if Facebook started giving me AI generated videos.... just kind of endless scroll slop designed to keep you coming back for more.” — Hayden Field [04:40, 05:31]
• Purpose seems to be normalizing AI in daily routines and staking ground in the new tech landscape.

OpenAI's ‘Sora’ App [08:13–11:23]

• “Sora is their new app and it’s basically an endless scroll, AI generated social media apps. So you can think of it as an AI generated TikTok.” — Hayden Field [08:21]
• Users can prompt any video they imagine (e.g., "alligators gambling in New York City").
• “You can make videos of yourself and your friends too, if they give you permission... The technology can parody you doing any number of things that you want.” — Hayden Field [08:58]
• The realism is alarming; even digital natives are unable to distinguish some Sora videos from reality.

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3. The Tech Behind AI Slop

[07:24–08:13]

• Rapid advancements: AI models now self-improve, with the biggest bottleneck being computing resources (“compute”).
• “It can get better and train itself at getting better.” — Hayden Field [07:45]
• Growth is exponential: “It will never be this bad again. Let that sink in. It only gets better.” — Sean Rameswaram [09:50]

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4. The Dilemma of Authenticity and Disinformation

[11:56–13:47]

• Even non-tech-savvy relatives (and highly online people) are being fooled by AI slop.
• “Now we’re going to all have to take everything with a grain of salt, including videos, because you really just don’t know these days what’s real and what’s not.” — Hayden Field [12:59]
• Political uses: Politicians (e.g., Trump) posting AI-generated videos—raising stakes for misinformation and public trust as election cycles return.

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5. Playing “Is It Slop?”: Can Experts Tell What’s Real?

[17:09–21:29]

• Segment: Hayden and Sean play a game where they attempt to identify which viral videos are real and which are AI-generated.
• Both are easily fooled by hyper-realistic AI videos, reinforcing how difficult discernment has become.
• “If this fooled us, this is why people need to have really good judgment and take everything with a grain of salt...” — Hayden Field [20:19]
• “Dad, if you’re listening, I’m no better than you are. I was fooled.” — Sean Rameswaram [20:32]

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6. Practical Tips: How to Spot AI Slop

[22:30–24:16]
Hayden shares red flags for identifying AI-generated content:

• Inconsistent Lighting: Unnatural or mismatched illumination, especially with multiple light sources.
• Unnatural Facial Expressions: Smiles or emotions that don’t quite match real human expression (“maybe someone’s smiling too, too big... or crying with their eyes too open”).
• Airbrushed Skin: Overly smooth, filter-like skin throughout video frames.
• Background Details: Objects that morph, merge, or disappear unexpectedly (e.g., Ferris wheels blurring or coat hangers merging).
• Malformed Written Words: AI often garbles text in backgrounds (“Gatorade” sign reads “bla” [24:16]).
• Note: None of these are foolproof; even experts are tricked.

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7. Industry Response, Safeguards, and Loopholes

[24:35–25:43]

• Some platforms watermark AI videos (e.g., Sora), but pro users can remove watermarks, and tutorials for removal are widespread.
• Companies claim to care about transparency, but actual efforts are uneven, and technical arms races exist between safeguards and circumvention.
• “It’s hard because by the very nature of technology like this, it’s going to be misused. So you just kind of have to see if you can stem that misuse as much as possible, which is what they’re trying to do. But... I’m a little concerned.” — Hayden Field [25:43]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the explosion of slop:
  • “Everything is AI slop.” — Guest/Co-host [03:27]
• On normalization:
  • “I think it’s really just about Zuckerberg trying to make AI a bigger piece of the everyday person’s life and routine and day, getting people more used to it.” — Hayden Field [06:01]
• On technological progress:
  • “It will never be this bad again. Let that sink in. It only gets better.” — Sean Rameswaram [09:50]
• On the risk for society:
  • “Especially because a lot of people can't tell what's real and what's not... now we’re going to all have to take everything with a grain of salt, including videos...” — Hayden Field [12:59]
• Humorous moments:
  • “Fresh pasta of Bel Air.” — Sean Rameswaram [06:54]
  • “If you pay them money, you could, you could lose the watermark. Very nice.” — Sean Rameswaram [25:02]
• On humility in the face of slop:
  • “If this fooled us, this is why people need to have really good judgment and take everything with a grain of salt.” — Hayden Field [20:19]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Definition & Introduction to AI Slop: 02:04–03:19
• Meta and OpenAI’s Role: 04:13–11:23
• Technological Progress: 07:24–08:13
• Misinformation & Trust Issues: 11:56–13:47
• “Is It Slop?” Game: 17:09–21:29
• Practical Tips for Spotting AI: 22:30–24:16
• Watermarks & Industry Safeguards: 24:35–25:43

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Conclusion

AI-generated content (“slop”) is flooding social media, blurring the lines between reality and fabrication to an alarming degree—even fooling experts. As AI-generated videos become more lifelike, discernment becomes increasingly difficult, eroding trust in what we see online. While technical safeguards exist, they are often easily circumvented, placing the burden on individuals to adopt a skeptical eye and learn to spot subtle inconsistencies. The era of trusting viral video evidence—political or otherwise—is over: “Take everything with a grain of salt.”

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Guest Attribution:

• Hayden Field: Senior AI Reporter at The Verge
• Sean Rameswaram: Host, Today, Explained

[Episode ends with a personal announcement by Sean Rameswaram and program credits, not summarized per instructions.]

Transcript

[Sean Rameswaram]

Today explained from Vox. Shawn Ramisra I'm also from vox. I'm soon to be the father of a daughter and my dad's pretty excited about that because he always wanted a daughter. He wanted me to be a girl. And that's all the time we have to talk about that. But the other day he sent me.

[Hayden Field]

A video, hello Darkness, my old friend.

[Sean Rameswaram]

A YouTube short of a girl singing. It was titled 12 Year Old Sings for Hero dad. And he said, hope my granddaughter learns this song one day. But nothing about this video seemed right. For starters, the girl looks like she's 6 and not 12. The description reads the heartwarming song that the father taught his daughter before the accident. What accident? The mouth movements don't line up, the shots of the crowd, the lighting. Everything is too perfect. And that's why it had to be AI Slop. I wrote back to my dad. This video is unfortunately artificial intelligence and we haven't talked since. Just kidding. But my dad's not the only one getting duped by AI Slop. A lot of you are, and pretty soon the rest of us will join you because we are in our AI Slope era. Support for the show today comes from Anthropic, the team behind Claude. Today's news moves fast, but the most important stories deserve deeper thinking. Whether you're trying to understand the implications of a policy change or connecting dots across breaking stories, Claude, your new AI collaborator, can help you go beyond the headlines. Claude doesn't just summarize the news. It helps you explore the context, analyze the patterns, and think through what it all means together. Try Claude for free at Claude AI.

[Sponsor Voice 1]

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[Hayden Field]

You are listening to today's screen. I'm Hayden Field, senior AI reporter at the Verge. Slop to me, AI Slop. The way I define it is just any form of AI generated content that's designed to keep you scrolling and keep you consuming and coming back for more.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Step right up. Today's special's fresh out of the bat. Little beige, little gray. We call it AI Slop. Let me get you a scoop. Which fruit Bed.

[Hayden Field]

Would you sleep in Blueberry bed? These new AI generated video social media platforms that have an endless scroll or, you know, a AI generated blog post that goes on and on and on and has a ton of different subsections that aren't needed. It doesn't feel like there's a lot of intentionality behind it, at least most of the time. And, you know, a lot of what.

[Guest/Co-host]

I see I. I would define as slop. You know, it's like corgis running on Hamstead Heath, like, rolling around.

[Hayden Field]

Yeah, it's cute.

[Guest/Co-host]

But guess what? There's some real videos of corgis out there that I'm sure are just as cute. You know, it's just kind of like.

[Hayden Field]

Designed to keep you consuming more and more. And the endless scroll doesn't help with that.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Why is it important that we talk about slop right now?

[Hayden Field]

We've never been in an era with more AI slop.

[Guest/Co-host]

Everything is AI slop.

[Hayden Field]

AI labs are pivoting to video in a new way. You know, we've seen character AI launch an AI generated video social media, a scrolling experience. We've seen Meta do the same thing with this app called Vibes. And now we've seen OpenAI do it with Sora.

[Sean Rameswaram]

It's the most powerful imagination engine ever built. Sora 2 is also the state of the art for motion physics, IQ and body mechanics, marking a giant leap forward in realism.

[Hayden Field]

So we're kind of being hit in the face with AI slop everywhere we look. So it's really important to talk about it right now because, I mean, you're going to be hit with it no matter what. So you need to know what you're looking at and kind of how to handle it.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Well, let's talk about the two companies really propelling our slop era forward right Now, Meta and OpenAI. Let's start with Meta, which is really pivoting to slop. What is zuck up to?

[Guest/Co-host]

First of all, I love the term slop era. That's so true. We are definitely in our slop era.

[Sean Rameswaram]

It's me.

[Guest/Co-host]

Yeah, I mean, propelling the slot forward. Meta is definitely doing that. Maybe more than most other companies.

[Hayden Field]

Vibes, they put it out first before OpenAI put out their app. To be honest, it was the kind of stuff I would expect to see if Facebook started giving me AI generated videos. So lots of animal videos, lots of blobs being cute, bouncing on the ground. None of it looked super real to me.

[Guest/Co-host]

And all of it I would definitely define as AI slop.

[Sean Rameswaram]

You once Commented fake on your grandma's Facebook post of AI kittens. And you never once thanked Clippy. The thing that end of the world movies definitely did not prepare me for was having to, like, enter my Q3 goals and attend all hands meetings.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

Let's cast a live action Candyland movie.

[Hayden Field]

I'll go first.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

The obvious choice for Lord Licorice is Snoop Dogg.

[Hayden Field]

It was a lot of stuff that you'd feel like your uncle might send to you and say, oh, look how cute this is. Or, you know, people of other generations might find more exciting than, like, Gen Z. None of it was that convincing. It was just kind of endless scroll slop designed to keep you coming back for more and be kind of cute and minimally entertaining. In my opinion.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Facebook, like, changed the world. Instagram certainly changed our habits. What is Mark Zuckerberg trying to do with Vibes?

[Hayden Field]

So that is the million dollar question. I think a lot of people are asking that online right now. I saw a lot of anecdotes, reviews, articles, all asking, why did we get this when no one asked for it? And I think it's honestly all about getting AI into our daily routine. These companies, especially Meta right now, really want to keep us consuming AI generated content, and they really want to keep us on the platform. I mean, we saw that with Facebook, we saw that with Instagram. Now we're seeing it with Vibes. I think it's really just about Zuckerberg trying to make AI a bigger piece of the everyday person's life and routine and day, getting people more used to it, and also kind of putting a signpost in the ground, just saying, hey, look, this is where the technology's at right now. It's a lot better than it was when we saw Will Smith eating spaghetti.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Fresh pasta of Bel Air.

[Hayden Field]

You know, it's.

[Guest/Co-host]

It's even better than it was when we saw the Pope wearing that puffer jacket.

[Sponsor Voice 3]

It's the Pope. He looks fantastic. He's wearing a big white puffer jacket that looks like it was made like Balenciaga, Moncler, something like that. He looks like he just stepped off a Runway. And of course, the kicker is that it's a fake image that it was made using AI. It's not a real thing.

[Guest/Co-host]

So, yeah, he's kind of just showing.

[Hayden Field]

Us, hey, the tech has come a long way and it's going to keep going.

[Sean Rameswaram]

How did it get so much better so fast? Because, yes, this is not Will Smith eating spaghetti. This is better than that to give Mark and OpenAI, which we'll talk about in a moment, their due is this like the Moore's Law thing where technology is just going to get, you know, exponentially better every so often.

[Hayden Field]

Pretty much, you know. And the other part of it is that, you know, AI now trains itself a lot of the time it can get better and train itself at getting better. The only thing really standing in their way, or one of the big things standing in their way is really just compute. And, you know, all these companies are building data centers, making new deals every day. They're really working on getting more compute so that they can push the tech even more forward and faster.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Let's talk about what OpenAI is doing. They just released something called Sora 2. What is Sora?

[Hayden Field]

So Sora is their new app and it's basically an endless scroll, AI generated social media apps. So you can think of it as an AI generated TikTok. In a way, it's honestly a lot like using TikTok. There's a for you page, you know this, it's a vertical scroll in the same way, but everything is AI generated and it's all using text prompts. So you can say, can you make me a video of alligators gambling in New York City? And it'll make it or so essential.

[Sean Rameswaram]

So essential. That's what gets me.

[Guest/Co-host]

Yeah, we all need that every single day.

[Hayden Field]

But the craziest part, honestly, is that you can make videos of yourself and your friends too, if they give you permission. So essentially it's called a cameo. And you record your own face moving side to side. You record your voice speaking a sequence of numbers. And then the technology can parody you doing any number of things that you want. So you put in a text prompt saying, make a video of me at prom with a bunch of aliens. And then if your friends give you permission to use their cameos, you can say, hey, make a video of me at prom with a bunch of aliens. And also Sean doing Fortnite dances. It'll create that if you give me permission. So that's kind of why it's so different than Meta's vibes and why it feels different when you're scrolling through it. Because you're seeing videos of real people and they look real.

[Sean Rameswaram]

All of the lighting on my face looks really good. It is just so very, very impressive. It will never be this bad again. Let that sink in. It only gets better.

[Hayden Field]

I was scrolling through and seeing Sam Altman drinking a giant juice box or any number of other things.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Now I'm hanging out with Charizard. Hey, buddy.

[Hayden Field]

It looks like it's really Sam Altman or it looks like it's really Jake Paul.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Go Ducks.

[Hayden Field]

The only way I can tell it's not a lot of the time is that they're doing something fantastical or something they just wouldn't be doing.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Have you made one of yourself yet?

[Hayden Field]

I have.

[Guest/Co-host]

I had to for work, so.

[Sean Rameswaram]

I had to for work is a great excuse.

[Guest/Co-host]

Yep. I mean, I did want to try it out, but I do sometimes have paws on, like, giving my likeness to the machine. But you know what? I took one for the team. I did it.

[Hayden Field]

I created a video of myself frolicking through a meadow.

[Guest/Co-host]

I feel like I could stay forever.

[Hayden Field]

Look at these flowers. They smell amazing. The sky is incredible. But I will say my voice was not quite right and my face was pretty accurate. Except for just at the very beginning, it got me wrong when I was, like, twirling. But when my face was pretty steady, it looked scarily accurate. Like some of my friends couldn't tell. The only things that kind of tipped them off are that my hair was weird. It wasn't a full body scan, things like that. But yeah, it was incredibly accurate. And we've come a long way since. Since Will Smith eating spaghetti, for sure.

[Sean Rameswaram]

And I imagine your friends aren't like 80 years old. They're like your peers.

[Hayden Field]

Right? That's why it was so terrifying in a way, because they couldn't tell. A lot of the videos that I showed them were AI. You know, I have a group chat.

[Guest/Co-host]

And the reactions were like, I hate everything about this.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Wait, that's wild. Why does it look like you?

[Hayden Field]

So people were. Yeah, I mean, these are people that are extremely online, just like me, and couldn't really tell.

[Guest/Co-host]

So it's been.

[Hayden Field]

It's been a big change.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Let's talk more about terrifying. I mean, because it's not just you posting these in your group chats. The President has taken to posting AI videos of himself, of his opposition. Look, guys, there's no way to sugarcoat it. Nobody likes Democrats anymore. We have no voters left because of all of our woke trans bullshit. These aren't just being used for fun. They're being used to political ends. How concerned should we be at this point?

[Hayden Field]

I think pretty concerned. Especially because a lot of people can't tell what's real and what's not. A lot of the videos that Trump has posted recently that I've seen that have been generated by AI, you could definitely tell they weren't real. But that doesn't mean the next one he posts won't be realistic.

[Sean Rameswaram]

And of course it's, you know, October 2025. There's no election going on right now, but by the time there is a big federal election a year and a month from now, this technology will be even better.

[Hayden Field]

Exactly. And it's interesting because I remember, you know, back in the day, if you saw a photo, you might say, oh, that's doctored. But if you saw a video, you'd say, oh, well, this is kind of proof that this thing really happened. Now we're going to all have to taking everything with a grain of salt, including videos, because you really just don't know these days what's real and what's not. I think it's kind of just changing the game on our perception and the lens with which we view the world. We'll have to take everything with a grain of salt even more than before, and really just kind of enter this new era of casting doubt on things. Unless you have proof kind of how journalists operate, you know, like a lot of times you have to have two or three sources saying the same thing to kind of verify it. I think the general public will have to operate in a similar way.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Well, how about when we return on Today Explained, you help us and our audience with some tips and tricks to identify AI generated slop.

[Hayden Field]

Love that.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Support for the show today comes from Indeed. Let's set the scene. It's the moment you always fear. At the end of a meeting, the project mentor asks who's on top of this? And you realize suddenly that no one was ever on top of it and no one's got any bandwidth to get a jump on it. Guess who you can call? Put up that Indeed signal like the bat signal, but it says Indeed over our night sky. Indeed Sponsored Jobs help you stand out and hire fast. With Sponsored Jobs, you can post jobs to the top of the page for your relevant candidates so you can reach the people you want faster and it makes a huge difference. According to Indeed's data, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed have 45% more applications than non sponsored jobs, and listeners to this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit. To get your jobs more [e-mail] todayexplained just go to indeed.com todayexplained right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this show. Indeed.com todayexplained terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed's all you need.

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[Sean Rameswaram]

Today. Explain is back. I'm Sean Ramisvir. I'm here with Hayden Field from the Verge, whose friends were astonished in the group chat by how real a video of you looked when you were frolicking in a field. Is that right?

[Guest/Co-host]

That's right.

[Sean Rameswaram]

And of course we started the show hearing about my father who was fooled by an AI video as well. So we're gonna do a segment here to help all the people who are getting misled by AI video called Is It Slow? Let's see how this is. Gonn producer Ariana has thrown a few videos together, some of them generated by OpenAI Sora, some might be real. And you and I are going to collaborate, Hayden, to figure out which is real and which is not. And just to be totally transparent here, I have not seen any of these videos. I have no idea what we are about to see.

[Guest/Co-host]

Sight.

[Sean Rameswaram]

First up, an empty bottle and floats right away. Now the rock straight down. You can see the bubbles trailing it. Bottles still cruising on top. Cool little okay, interesting. So we just saw a guy throwing stuff in what looked to be a pool.

[Guest/Co-host]

It was scary how realistic those ripples.

[Hayden Field]

Looked and how you know, the rock did sink. But I think a lot of times when you're trying to figure out if something's AI, you honestly just have to go off the vibes and your intuition, cuz it's so good now that you just can't really tell why you feel something. You just have to go with your gut. And I will say the rock in his hand looked kind of weird for a second. So I'm going to say AI, I'm.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Glad you mentioned his hands because I've always known from our episode on the Puffer Pope, which was a while ago, I feel like hands are the hardest thing to recreate, to generate in AI and have them look real. So I'm going to join you on Team Slop on this one. Yay. Wow. Yay.

[Guest/Co-host]

So happy.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Thank God. But I will say if I saw it quickly while scrolling in like a field of other real things.

[Hayden Field]

Same like, I would never just think it was AI unless I was, you know, being presented with it and saying, oh, is this real or AI? Especially if I was going quickly.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Okay, so like, you know, no judgments. If this would have failed anyone out there. Ariana, hit us with the second. Oh, no.

[Guest/Co-host]

Oh, no.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Okay, this is a video of a cat on a treadmill and it's walking against the motion of the treadmill and then it gets tripped up a few times and runs into the front of the treadmill.

[Guest/Co-host]

So sad.

[Sean Rameswaram]

That looked pretty real to me.

[Hayden Field]

Yeah, I'm gonna say the same thing. I think it looked real. And also, sometimes I feel like if something's too perfect looking, it's AI and it didn't look too perfect. Like the quality was kind of just normal. The cat's fur looked normal. I'm gonna say real also.

[Sean Rameswaram]

And I will just say, I will preface this before we get the answer, that if I saw this in my feed, I 100%, 100% thousand percent would have just figured it was real.

[Hayden Field]

Yeah.

[Guest/Co-host]

Same.

[Sean Rameswaram]

The verdict. No, no. Oh, no.

[Guest/Co-host]

Oh my God.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Where are the.

[Hayden Field]

Oh, how is this fake?

[Guest/Co-host]

Like, look at the cat's whiskers and its fur. This is crazy, this.

[Hayden Field]

But you know what?

[Guest/Co-host]

This is proof that we need to be talking about this. Because if this fooled us, this is why people need to have really good judgment and take everything with a grain of salt because, yeah, that looked very real to me.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Okay, well, dad, if you're listening, I'm no better than you are. I was fooled. Video 3, you saw him just not.

[Sponsor Voice 3]

Use the road on the outside. A nice sarcastic. I think was that A thumbs up or a little.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Okay. Video three was like an F1 race from the perspective of a driver taking a turn. And I think just process of elimination. One of these has to be real. So if it wasn't the cat, it's this one.

[Guest/Co-host]

I agree. I was gonna say it's real, but you know what? I don't think it looks realer than the cat video, but now I'm gonna say it's real because we only have one left.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Ariana, was this the real one? Okay.

[Guest/Co-host]

Phew. Okay, two for three, but mostly by process of elimination. Love it.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Two for three. But, like, the point of this story is you an AI reporter.

[Guest/Co-host]

Yep.

[Sean Rameswaram]

And I guess I someone who feels like they're pretty good at telling fake and real apart. Both got duped.

[Hayden Field]

Yep.

[Guest/Co-host]

That's really telling. And so this is why it's so important we're talking about this because people need to have the tools and, you know, grain of salt in their mind whenever they consume videos like this to not just take it at face value.

[Hayden Field]

Especially now, you know, people that are.

[Guest/Co-host]

Extremely online like us. I feel like I always, you know, take pride in the fact that I'm never fooled, but that era is coming to a close, sadly.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Mm. Okay. Well, Hayden, thank you for playing Is it slop?

[Guest/Co-host]

It was a blast. I mean, is it slop? I think we're gonna have to be playing that with everyone we know from now on.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Okay. So since we all are playing this game now, whether we want to or not, help people out there spot red flags or telltale signs that what they're seeing is indeed AI slot. Because how does one know what they're seeing is real or not? In this era where it's getting harder.

[Hayden Field]

To discern, as everyone could see, we just got fooled by something. So these tips I'm about to give you aren't foolproof, but they will help a bit, especially for a video that's a little bit longer. If you watch something long enough, you'll probably find one of the telltale signs that something's AI generated. And these are some of them. One of them is inconsistent lighting. So it's hard sometimes for AI to get the vibes of a place. Right. If there's a bunch of lamps, you know, maybe that's really dark in one corner, maybe it doesn't have the realistic quality of sunlight. Basically just inconsistent lighting that isn't quite right. That could be something you could pick up on. Another thing is unnatural facial expressions that just don't seem quite right. So maybe someone's smiling too, too big or they're crying with their eyes too open. Something like that. Another one is airbrushed skin. So skin that looks too perfect, you know, I mean, we all use filters now, but maybe in a video skin that looks too perfect, it just doesn't look quite right. Finally, background details that might disappear or morph as the video goes on. This is a big one. Taylor Swift, actually, some of her promo for her new album apparently had a Ferris wheel in the background that the spokes kind of blurred as it moved and a coat on two coat hangers merged into one. So yeah, I would say watching a video and seeing the background details, how they change and really paying attention to the little things.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Okay, so there's light, there's facial expressions, there's airbrushed skin, there's background details that are a little inconsistent. Anything else out there that we should be looking for?

[Hayden Field]

AI is still not very good at written words. I saw like a post game interview fake video with an athlete and it was supposed to say Gatorade on the step and repeat behind him, but it said like bla instead.

[Guest/Co-host]

That's my take on the word.

[Hayden Field]

But it's also interesting because, you know, I just wish we had more rules about this stuff and how it could be disclosed. You know, for example, OpenAI does have a safeguard in that every video that you download from Sora has a watermark, or at least most videos. Some pro users can download one without a watermark, but.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Oh, cool. So if you pay them money, you could, you could lose the watermark. Very nice.

[Hayden Field]

But the other thing is, I've seen a bunch of YouTube tutorials saying, here's how to remove the Sora watermark.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Today I'll show you how to erase.

[Sponsor Voice 4]

It yourself seamlessly using simple AI workflows. Let's learn as fast as possible how we remove watermarks and Sora.

[Sean Rameswaram]

I mean, do companies like OpenAI or Meta Care, if we can tell if this is real or not, or is that exactly what they want, they say.

[Hayden Field]

They care, so I guess that's all we can say right now. They do have a lot of safeguards in place. At least OpenAI does.

[Sean Rameswaram]

We will make some good decisions and some missteps, but we will take feedback and try to fix the missteps very quickly.

[Hayden Field]

But it's hard because by the very nature of technology like this, it's going to be misused. So you just kind of have to see if you can stem that misuse as much as possible, which is what they're trying to do. But we're gonna have to wait and see how successful they are at that. And right now, if history is any guide, I'm a little concerned.

[Sean Rameswaram]

Hayden Field she reports on AI@The Verge.com youm can also hear her on the Verge's Decoder podcast as of late. And yet another podcast you might want to check out, Switched On Pop. They recently did an episode on AI Generated Music, and they played a game similar to the one we played today, but with songs. And in doing so they inspired the one we played today. Thanks to game show host Ariana Aspuru for producing today. Patrick Boyd mixed, Laura Bullard checked the slop and Jolie Myers edited. We had an assist from Vox's Future Perfect. I'm Sean Ramis from with a couple of announcements. The first, you can support our work right [e-mail] members. We're so eager to have you become a member that we are offering you a deal on membership right now. If you like deals and memberships or even supporting explanatory journalism. Vox.com members announcement the second I am out. Baby girl is showing up later today, so I'm taking off for five months. Thank you for listening. Keep listening. I'll be back soon. Happy Halloween, Thanksgiving, New Year's and Valentine's Day in advance. Peace.