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AI Slop Fatigue and Analog Intelligence

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Following my cartoon last month on the content firehose, I was struck by this comment from Albi Pagenstert, head of brand for BMW North America:

“Authenticity is the new disruption. At a time when everyone’s using AI to simulate something that looks and feels real, being genuine actually stands out.”

Albi was describing the brief behind their new ad that makes fun of the glut of “AI slop,” a buzzword for low quality, high volume AI-generated content. Polaroid similarly tapped into this insight in a recent billboard campaign with headlines like “AI can’t generate sand between your toes.”

This stretches far beyond advertising. WIRED shared research late last year that over 54% of longer English-language posts on LinkedIn were likely AI-generated. Google, YouTube, TikTok and Pinterest are starting to grapple with AI slop using different degrees of labeling, detection, and filtering. Google is now using the term “human-first” to describe what it prioritizes in AI overviews.

I love how my friend Ann Handley has been writing and talking about the benefits of another type of AI: "Analog Intelligence." Ann is no luddite, but she describes Analog as an essential complement to Artificial Intelligence:

“I’m convinced that in the Age of Artificial, Analog is a power move.”

Ann also warns about the dangers of what she calls “Thoughtstipation," which I think is a watch-out in all forms of communication and creativity:

“Thoughtstipation happens when we skip the messy, human part of creativity—the part where we meander, doodle, ramble, reflect, and debate the use of an Oxford comma just because we love thinking about sentences.

“AI is useful. OF COURSE it is.

“But if you invite it in too early, before you’ve even heard your own voice and explored for yourself, you risk overriding your natural thinking process. Over time, that leads to chronic blockage. You literally can't think without AI in the wings; you've offloaded your own brain and its power.”

Collaboration with BlueOcean

Marketers are always asked to think outside the box. And then they’re judged on what they can immediately prove.

Short-term metrics tend to shrink creativity into whatever fits the box. And chasing dashboards can keep teams focused on yesterday instead of tomorrow.

BlueOcean combines brand, market, and competitive intelligence with agentic AI to help marketers escape the box and have the confidence to make long-term moves.

Cartoon From The Archives

Here’s a related cartoon I drew in early 2023, just a few months after ChatGPT launched (which feels like a lifetime ago):

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-Tom

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About Marketoonist

Marketoonist is the thought bubble of me, Tom Fishburne. I first started drawing cartoons as a student in the Harvard Business School newspaper (not quite as well-known for humor as the Lampoon) and later started this newsletter from a General Mills cubicle in 2002. The cartoons have followed my career ever since. I poke fun at the ever-changing world of marketing and business because I believe that laughing at ourselves can help us do our best work.