More than 1 million people used LinkedIn’s “Seems like AI slop” button

In short: LinkedIn says more than one million people have clicked a button to report posts that “seem like AI slop.”

What's going on

LinkedIn added a new reporting option on July 30 called “Seems like AI slop.” It lets people flag posts that look like they were written by AI and feel spammy or low effort. The button is found in the three dots menu on a post.

In a recent post, LinkedIn chief product officer Hari Srinivasan said “over a million people” have already clicked it. That suggests a lot of users are noticing and reporting this kind of content.

The button arrived after an outside AI detector called Pangram said 41 percent of LinkedIn’s longform posts were flagged as fully AI generated. Think of it like a spellcheck tool, but for guessing whether a piece of writing was made by a computer. LinkedIn also said it has updated its own systems for spotting AI-made posts and removed a feature that used AI to “enhance your post.”

LinkedIn says these steps may be reducing how often people see the content it labels as “AI slop.” Srinivasan wrote that users are now experiencing 40 percent fewer views of posts LinkedIn classifies that way compared with a few weeks ago.

What to watch

LinkedIn is also adding a message for people who post, saying “Some members told us this post seems like AI.” That could push users to rewrite posts in a more personal way, or it could lead to disagreements about what counts as AI writing. It is also worth watching how accurate LinkedIn’s detection is, since labeling mistakes could frustrate real users.

Source: The Verge AI