You've probably already recognized the way chatbot answers sound a little same-y. Whether it's a product review that's overly positive or search results that funnel real publications into trimmed down snippets that lack real information. It's obvious the web is filling up with AI-generated filler known as "slop," and there's a growing worry in AI labs that this junk might be quietly degrading the next generation of AI itself.
There's a name for this: model collapse. And the good news is that the same researchers sounding the alarm are now figuring out how to stop it, and in one case, with a fix that sounds almost too simple to be true.
