When artificial intelligence first arrived on the scene, people generally fell into one of two camps. There were those who believed (and still believe) it would revolutionise society for the better. Then there were those who were (and perhaps still are) convinced it will be responsible for society’s ultimate downfall.

The jury on that is still out. But it is becoming clear that the more widespread the use of AI becomes, the more we’re beginning to drown in digital landfill; a sea of useless crap that doesn’t help anyone.

We’ve learnt the hard way that we cannot trust Silicon Valley to do the right thing when left to its own devices. Credit: Stephen Kiprillis

Known as “slop”, this initially included inane things like AI-generated images of Donald Trump as the Pope or Jesus riding a prawn. But thanks to Twitter and Square co-founder Jack Dorsey, slop is also now extending to apps with Silicon Valley’s latest fad: “vibe coding”.

An app for tracking your UV exposure might sound innocent enough. God knows most of us aren’t getting nearly enough vitamin D, and wanting to know how long you can tan before you burn sounds like a good idea.

But what if that same app tracked your location, needed to know your skin tone and what you’re wearing, and had been built in just a day? Sun Day is one of the apps Dorsey released within a week (the first was a beta version of Bitchat, a messaging app that relies on Bluetooth and doesn’t need the internet to operate).

In May, Donald Trump shared on social media what appeared to be an artificial intelligence-generated photo of himself wearing the traditional vestments of the Pope.Credit: X

To create both apps, Dorsey relied on........

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