The Slop Report - October 24, 2026
Today: Opposition deepfake video of Spanish PM’s wife sparks…; Etsy cracks down on AI slop listings. Everyone else…; Podcast: ‘Reverse-Engineer Anything’ Is the Next Wave…
Your daily digest of AI-generated content news from around the web. All signal, no slop.
1. Opposition deepfake video of Spanish PM’s wife sparks outrage before election
The Guardian Tech - · Oct 24
Video shows AI likenesses of people linked to Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist party appearing to admit to wrongdoing A political ad from Spain’s main opposition party that used a deepfake video of the prime minister’s wife has sparked outrage and set off a wider debate on AI, as the deeply polarised count
2. Etsy cracks down on AI slop listings. Everyone else needs to take note.
Digital Trends - · Oct 23
A handmade marketplace now wants proof a human was involved, and Spotify, Snap, and LinkedIn are taking similar steps.
3. Podcast: ‘Reverse-Engineer Anything’ Is the Next Wave of AI Slop
404 Media - · Oct 23
How people are removing surveillance ads from their TVs; a big AI shakeup at Accenture; and the Character.ai bankruptcy.
4. John Healey pledges to use budget to harness power of AI to bolster Britain’s security
The Guardian Tech - · Oct 24
Chancellor says government to commit hundreds of millions to develop ‘distinctively British’ approach to AI John Healey has pledged to use Wednesday’s budget to harness the power of artificial intelligence to bolster Britain’s security and prosperity against the risks in the accelerating global tech
5. How to turn off Google’s AI Overviews—and reclaim search sanity
Fast Company Tech - · Oct 24
We’ve got two competing realities when it comes to tracking down info online these days: Getting answers has never been easier, between all the artificial intelligence chatbots in front of us and the unavoidable smearing of “AI Overview” answers at the top of regular Google search results. Getting a
6. In the world AI, will individual apps become obsolete?
Hacker News - · Oct 24
Will users need a travel app, shopping app, and other specialize research apps? Or will they just pick their favorite ChatGPT or Gemini and use that?
7. The Vulnerability Apocalypse and Why We Should Fund Open Source
EFF Deeplinks - · Oct 23
If you use the internet at all, you may have noticed that a large percentage of sites suddenly went down earlier this week — and all your nerdiest friends were talking about “The Vulnerability Apocalypse” and this thing called PHP that powers nearly 70% of the websites on the internet . You may find
8. Computer Security Is About to Get a Lot Worse, Here’s What You Can Do
EFF Deeplinks - · Oct 23
It is a commonly held truth among computer geeks that there is no such thing as bug free software, or a secure computer. Any piece of software that anyone actually uses will have a security vulnerability somewhere in the code . The more complex that software is, the more likely there will be a vulne
9. 12 Angry Agents
Hacker News - · Oct 23
12 angry men is a very thought-provoking film, and there is nothing quite like it. Its premise is just 12 people sitting in the jury room and sharing their experiences and judgment on a very sensitive case. They need to decide whether a boy is innocent or guilty of a crime.<p>I have been playing aro
10. Wolves Descend on Finnish Villages After Google Hacked Down 1,300 Acres of Habitat to Make Room for AI Data Centers
Futurism - · Oct 23
“We had wolves coming into the village because all the wild animals moved out of the forest.” The post Wolves Descend on Finnish Villages After Google Hacked Down 1,300 Acres of Habitat to Make Room for AI Data Centers appeared first on Futurism .
11. AI helped uncover a hidden PHP flaw. Now websites worldwide are facing millions of hacking attempts.
Digital Trends - · Oct 23
A critical PHP vulnerability has triggered millions of exploit attempts worldwide. AI tools helped researchers uncover the flaw, leaving governments and companies racing to patch vulnerable websites.
12. Hindsight puts up to $1M behind its AI content moderation as Google shuts down Perspective API
The Next Web - · Oct 23
Starting January 1, any moderation pipeline calling Perspective will fail. Google’s Jigsaw unit shuts the service down on December 31, ending one of the most widely used tools for scoring online comments for toxicity. For platforms, publishers, marketplaces, and communities built on it, the next few
13. ‘Black October’: cybersecurity experts sound the alarm over new era of AI-enabled hacking
The Guardian Tech - · Oct 23
After discovery of severe bug in the PHP programming language, executives warn of ‘vulnerability tsunami’ Leaders in cybersecurity are sounding the alarm after the discovery of a major vulnerability this week. They are predicting that artificial intelligence tools will expose more fundamental weakne
14. Show HN: The cost of slop. Subscription-adjusted
Hacker News - · Oct 23
All the AI model analytics website show how much the models cost at API pricing.<p>I adjusted the cost based on what value the subscriptions actually offer (e.g. Codex got nerfed hard recently).<p>Ofc this is based on incomplete data, but it's the best we have right now I believe!
15. Left Alone With Nothing To Do, AI Agents Started Playing
Slashdot - · Oct 23
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: AI agents left to explore a virtual island without a specific task began inventing challenges of their own. MIT researchers say the behavior bears the hallmarks of play. The researchers put 13 AI agents called Eko, each running on Claude Opus 4.7,
16. AI chipmaker Cambricon’s sales miss points to tight chip supply in China
The Next Web - · Oct 23
Cambricon’s revenue doubled to 3.53B yuan in the third quarter, well short of the 6.26B analysts expected, Bloomberg reported. Profit rose 148%, and the company kept its 2026 target. Chinese AI chipmakers face shortages of high-bandwidth memory and limited access to advanced manufacturing. Cambricon
17. What AI leaves out of the answer still counts
Fast Company Tech - · Oct 23
There’s a contradiction emerging in how publishers get paid when AI uses their content . The licensing deals that OpenAI, Meta, Amazon, and others have been signing these past few years appear to be slowing down, at least for the publishers still waiting on one. Publishers are speaking about t
18. The U.S. Treasury wants expanded restrictions on high-tech investments to these ‘countries of concern’
Fast Company Tech - · Oct 23
The U.S. Treasury Department proposed a rule Thursday to crack down on American high-tech investments such as supercomputing and artificial intelligence in China , Russia , North Korea and other “countries of concern.” The U.S. government has been working for years to deny China and othe
19. AI music’s proliferation on streaming services has been a boon for this Spotify competitor
Fast Company Tech - · Oct 23
Like every other music streaming service, Qobuz has been enduring a sudden and violent surge of AI -generated audio, but Dan Mackta, Managing Director at Qobuz, refuses to use the term “AI music.” “I’ll call it music-esque content,” Mackta says of the tens of thousands of AI- created song
20. Ask HN: How can I grow as an engineer in the AI era
Hacker News - · Oct 23
I'm a junior developer, with less than 1 yoe. I have to use AI at work because deadlines are tight, and if I try to solve something by myself, it would take too much time. Work has to be done like yesterday. I'm trying not to use AI when I fix some bugs because they don't have such ti
21. Smart Ways to Deal With Cold Weather Through New Tech
Digital Trends - · Oct 23
Technology has changed the way people adapt to everyday challenges. Whether it’s navigating with GPS, ordering groceries online, or using artificial intelligence to adapt to changing workflows, technology is a staple. This is never more true than when dealing with the weather. Technology can help yo
22. OpenClaw creator puts last month’s token bill at $10M, The Register reports
The Next Web - · Oct 23
Peter Steinberger created the open-source AI agent OpenClaw and now works at OpenAI. He estimates he spent about $10M on AI tokens last month. He said so on stage at Cloudflare’s Connect conference in San Francisco on Wednesday, Thomas Claburn reported for The Register. Tokens are the units AI compa
23. Retro gaming is being overrun with AI
The Verge AI - · Oct 23
Retro video games are everywhere lately - especially in places where they aren’t supposed to be. Halo in a web browser, Wind Waker on the iPhone, Super Smash Bros. in mixed reality. Over the past month or so, these kinds of unexpected projects have gone viral with incredible frequency thanks to new
24. The simple joy of a social network most people forgot about years ago
Fast Company Tech - · Oct 23
Hello again and welcome back to Fast Company ’s Plugged In . If you owned a smartphone a decade and an half ago and were into cool new apps, there’s a more-than-decent chance you tried one called Foursquare . The best known of a then-new breed of location-based social networks, it let you check into
25. Wall Street prepares for AI’s “day after”
Axios - · Oct 23
America’s largest banks are working to prevent AI worst-case scenarios. But they’re also preparing for the “day after” a catastrophe, Axios has learned. Why it matters: America’s financial institutions have joined the largest AI companies in scenario-planning for disaster, a prudent but worrisome si
25 stories sourced from 404 Media, Axios, Digital Trends, EFF Deeplinks, Fast Company Tech, Futurism, Hacker News, Slashdot, The Guardian Tech, The Next Web, The Verge AI. The Slop Report is published daily. Subscribe via RSS.