In 2024, Google struck a $60M licensing cope with Reddit to entry Reddit’s content material firehose. And this was primarily an API pipeline into all of Reddit’s public posts.
Why this issues
Google is in the midst of an AI revolution that would destroy its search engine enterprise mannequin and threaten its greatest earner which is essentially made up of promoting income, which amounted to $264.59 billion U.S. dollars in 2024. So this may very well be a life and loss of life wrestle for Google. And AI is the monster that feeds on huge quantities of information and data for its giant language fashions for its Gemini Chatbot . That is the place Reddit is available in.
However people need data that’s credible and reliable. However each AI slop and Human slop are creating doubt and misinformation on-line. However extra about that later.
So Google is caught between the previous and the long run. Serps are the previous however nonetheless working and are rivers of gold for the second and the long run is the brand new “AI reply engines” tech which are disrupting the final 2 many years of the net.
So it wants to guard search and lean into AI. And AI and its giant language fashions want content material. And Reddit supplies that human created content material.
So that is resulting in the creation of Human Slop (Misinformation, faux information, conspiracy theories and rather more which are created on boards like Reddit and Quora and on Social media) and AI Slop (AI slop is the byproduct of generative fashions churning out low-quality content material at scale).
They usually then each feed off one another in a content material race to the underside. This seems as AI and human content material slop
So why is Google paying Reddit for entry to its content material?
Listed below are 3 causes:
1) Google wants Human Sign Injection for AI coaching
Google wanted entry to what it considers “actual human discourse” — messy, emotional, contradictory, and unfiltered — to enhance its LLMs (like Gemini).
Reddit supplies an abundance of real-world consumer opinions, recommendation, and questions, which might fill gaps in LLM coaching knowledge, particularly round area of interest questions, rising developments, and longtail queries.
2) It must deploy a defensive technique in opposition to OpenAI and others
Google must strike offers with publishers: OpenAI and Microsoft already struck offers with publishers. Google wanted knowledge that wasn’t from mainstream media or encyclopedic sources.
And Reddit is a distinctive area the place search intent and dialog overlap. It’s a goldmine of “genuine” queries and human language patterns.
3) There’s a search decline panic
Reddit outcomes more and more seem with “Reddit” tagged onto Google searches (e.g., “finest digital camera for journey Reddit”). Google observed customers belief forum-based content material greater than business Search engine marketing slop. So, they purchased entry to juice their very own LLMs, not simply their search outcomes.
Paradoxically, in attempting to fight AI-generated slop, Google licensed one of many greatest contributors to human slop.
What’s AI slop?
AI slop is the byproduct of generative fashions churning out low-quality content material at scale. Consider the 1000’s of articles spun up every day that reply “What time is the Tremendous Bowl?” or “ boil an egg” with robotic blandness. It’s filler textual content optimized not for perception however for Search engine marketing clicks and advert impressions.
AI slop seems authoritative—formatted neatly, keyword-rich, Search engine marketing-tuned—but it surely’s hole. It lacks lived expertise, context, or important judgment. It’s textual content generated to sport algorithms, to not inform or encourage individuals.
The hazard? When the net turns into dominated by slop, even the perfect AI fashions will solely have slop to study from. It’s the digital equal of feeding junk meals to an athlete and questioning why efficiency declines.
What’s Human slop?
Human slop has been round for much longer. It’s the messy underbelly of boards, remark sections, and conspiracy-driven threads. It’s Reddit rants handed off as truth. It’s Quora solutions confidently asserting nonsense. It’s Fb teams the place pseudoscience is handled as gospel.
In researching for this text the rating of Reddit above a reputable supply akin to Statista was made clear. I typed within the query “How a lot cash per 12 months does Google make from search?”
And Reddit ranked as #1 and Statista as #2 globally anwhat I’d classify as very credible sources and I’d put them within the “Human Content material Slop” bucket. Similar to getting your information from Fb.
Not like AI slop, which is algorithmic mimicry, human slop is pushed by ego, ignorance, and incentives. Individuals crave belonging, consideration, and validation. And when platforms reward sizzling takes, half-truths, and emotional bait, we shouldn’t be shocked when credibility will get drowned out.
Human slop thrives in locations the place moderation is lax, verification is absent, and virality is rewarded.
And this consists of social media and boards like Reddit and Quora.
Sound acquainted?
Google’s slop financial system
Right here’s the place issues get really twisted: Google, the corporate that when promised to “manage the world’s data,” now makes billions amplifying each AI and human slop.
1. Paying for human slop
Experiences counsel Google inked offers price tens of hundreds of thousands to drag Reddit knowledge into its coaching pipelines. Why? As a result of Google sees Reddit as a goldmine of “human indicators.” However let’s be sincere: a lot of Reddit is theory, fantasy, and bias—content material written not by consultants however by whoever shouted loudest in a thread.
By elevating Reddit as a supply of “actual human information,” Google isn’t curating credibility. It’s laundering human slop by way of the status of its search outcomes.
2. Feeding on AI slop
On the identical time, Google income from the Search engine marketing spam financial system—web sites plagued by auto-generated content material. Whole networks of publishers now exist solely to pump out AI-written pages that rank in search, load up with adverts, and vanish into irrelevance.
Google pretends to combat this with updates concentrating on “low-quality content material.” However the actuality? The slop retains rating, as a result of slop generates clicks, and clicks generate income.
3. Double-dipping on slop
That is the kicker: AI fashions are skilled on human slop (boards, feedback, low-grade blogs), whereas people are fed AI slop in search outcomes. The system is round. And who sits in the midst of this suggestions loop, accumulating hire at each flip? Google.
The parable of credibility
Google has at all times bought itself as a curator of data. PageRank, the unique algorithm, was speculated to floor the perfect, most authoritative sources. However at present, authority is a façade.
- A thread on Reddit with sufficient upvotes will get elevated to “credible human enter.”
- A weblog written totally by AI can nonetheless rank if it hits the appropriate Search engine marketing beats.
- Information shops churn out content material farms which are indistinguishable from AI spam, and Google rewards them with visitors.
The road between information and noise has collapsed. And but, the adverts maintain operating.
Why this issues
We’re not simply speaking about a little bit further spam. The slop drawback has deep penalties:
- Coaching Air pollution: Future AI fashions skilled on at present’s web will ingest extra rubbish than gold. This accelerates the degradation of machine intelligence itself.
- Belief Erosion: Individuals already mistrust establishments. When Google serves up contradictory nonsense—Reddit threads masquerading as truth subsequent to AI-written drivel—it deepens public cynicism.
- Data Collapse: As soon as the net turns into largely noise, the price of discovering reality skyrockets. This creates a bonus for closed methods (like paywalled analysis or personal databases) whereas the general public commons decays.
- Revenue Over Public Good: Google has the assets to steer in constructing credibility methods. As a substitute, it doubles down on monetizing the very content material that undermines belief.
The Google paradox
Right here’s the paradox: Google wants to look prefer it’s cleansing up the net whereas really thriving on the mess.
- It punishes small creators with countless algorithm modifications however quietly permits company content material farms to flood outcomes.
- It lectures about misinformation whereas funding the very platforms that unfold it.
- It talks about AI security whereas feeding AI fashions polluted knowledge streams.
Briefly: Google doesn’t resolve slop; it monetizes slop.
Historic echoes
We’ve been right here earlier than. Bear in mind the yellow journalism period of the late nineteenth century? Newspapers realized sensationalism bought higher than sober reporting. Headlines grew to become louder, information looser, and public discourse extra chaotic.
Google’s present trajectory is a digital replay. The incentives aren’t aligned with reality, solely with engagement. And engagement is measured as “time on web site” and extra.
And identical to then, society pays the value in confusion, polarization, and erosion of belief.
Why individuals don’t discover slop
Slop works as a result of it doesn’t appear to be slop.
- AI slop is grammatically right, neatly structured, and eerily competent at mimicking authority.
- Human slop feels genuine as a result of it comes with anger, humor, or vulnerability i.e. qualities machines wrestle to faux convincingly.
Each bypass our defenses in several methods. Each get boosted by algorithms that optimize for time-on-page and click-through charge. And each maintain us coming again for extra.
The way forward for slop
If nothing modifications, the web turns into a slop swamp. Right here’s a believable trajectory:
- By 2027, 80% of internet content material is predicted to be AI-generated, a lot of it indistinguishable from spam.
- Boards and communities grow to be more and more polluted as people mimic AI patterns and AI mimics people.
- Search outcomes grow to be a carousel of slop feeding slop, with credibility evaporating as a public normal.
At that time, reality turns into a premium product, locked behind paywalls, personal AI brokers, or area of interest platforms with heavy moderation. The open internet, as soon as the library of Alexandria for the digital age, dangers turning into a landfill.
Google’s slop habit
The uncomfortable reality is that Google is hooked on slop. It could actually’t afford to cease feeding on it as a result of slop scales. It’s low-cost to provide, straightforward to monetize, and endlessly renewable.
So long as advertisers pay for eyeballs, and so long as slop generates these eyeballs, Google will maintain enabling it. Credibility is pricey. Slop is worthwhile. Guess which one wins in Silicon Valley boardrooms?
Ultimate ideas
We’re heading quick in the direction of a slop-centered internet
We’re standing at a wierd second in web historical past. AI slop and human slop are converging, not diverging. The machines produce infinite volumes of plausible-sounding filler. The people produce countless streams of biased, emotional noise. And Google stitches each collectively, sprinkles adverts on prime, and calls it “organizing the world’s data.”
It’s not group. It’s monetized chaos.
The tragedy is not only that the net is noisier…it’s that the very firm with the facility to repair it has chosen to revenue from it as a substitute. And except we get up to the prices, the slop will solely deepen, till the net itself turns into one thing we now not belief.
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