AI Slop Isn’t an Image Problem. It’s a Story Problem.
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
“AI Slop” has become the insult of the moment.
Usually people use it to describe images: six-fingered hands, uncanny faces, endless streams of generic fantasy warriors, hyper-realistic astronauts riding tigers through space.
And some of that definitely deserves the label. But I don’t think the real problem is the images.
I think the real AI slop is the ideas.
For most of human history, making something was hard. If you wanted to make a film, you needed cameras, actors, locations, editors, equipment, money, and an alarming willingness to spend weekends indoors.
The challenge wasn’t coming up with ideas. The challenge was producing them.
AI flipped that equation. Now production is almost free. You can generate images, videos, music, voiceovers, and visual effects faster than ever before.
Which means the bottleneck isn’t execution anymore. It’s imagination.
And that’s where a lot of AI-generated content falls apart.
People aren’t writing stories. They’re prompting scenes.
A cool robot.
A dragon.
A cinematic chase.
A futuristic city.
A dramatic close-up.
These aren’t stories. They’re moments. They’re ingredients. They’re the equivalent of opening your refrigerator and proudly announcing dinner because you found some eggs and a bottle of hot sauce.
The audience doesn’t care how impressive the ingredients are. They care what you’re making.
As a storyteller, I’ve noticed something interesting. Many AI creators spend hours refining prompts and almost no time refining narratives.
They generate first and think later. They improvise their way through production.
Imagine trying to make a movie without a screenplay. Or building a house without blueprints. Or taking a road trip without knowing where you’re headed.
That’s what a lot of AI filmmaking looks like right now.
People start generating scenes before they know what story they’re telling. Then they wonder why the final result feels empty.
There’s an old Hollywood saying: “If it ain’t on the page, it ain’t on the screen.”
That was true before AI. It’s even more true now. The irony is that AI can actually help with the part most creators skip.
You don’t need to sit at a keyboard for hours writing a traditional screenplay. You can talk through an idea. Brainstorm with AI. Outline a beginning, middle, and end. Test different versions.
Find the emotional heart of the story before you spend a single credit generating images or video.
The creators who win in the long run won’t be the ones with the most powerful tools. They’ll be the ones with the strongest stories. Because audiences have never cared about technology for its own sake.
They care about curiosity. Conflict. Surprise. Meaning. Connection.
Those things existed before AI. They’ll exist long after the next model update.
The tools are getting better every week. The question is whether the stories are.
Interested in using AI to develop stronger stories before you start generating images or video? Download my free resource below:
P.s. While not perfect, here’s a story I discovered today that I found surprisingly touching and interesting - the AI short “Zombie Scavenger” by MX-Shell.
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