--- title: AI Slop Is Everywhere. Here's How to Avoid Spending Money on It description: It's easier than ever to unwittingly buy "AI slop." Here are three ways you can avoid spending money on AI-generated books, music and art. authors: - name: Gabriel O. Rodriguez Cruz role: Associate Editor url: https://money.com/author/gabriel-rodriguez/ bio: Gabriel Rodríguez is an editor at Money who covers financial technology and digital security. His two main topics of expertise are identity theft protection services and crypto, specifically crypto wallet and crypto exchanges. education: University of Puerto Rico Rio Piedras at_money_since: 2018 articles: 102 covers: - Lifestyle - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Economy and Politics - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Pets - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabriel-rodriguez-cruz/ editors: - name: Julia Glum role: Managing Editor url: https://money.com/author/julia-glum/ bio: Julia Glum joined Money in 2018 and specializes in covering financial trends that affect everyday Americans' wallets. She also writes Dollar Scholar, a weekly newsletter that teaches young adults how to navigate the messy world of money. education: University of Florida at_money_since: 2018 articles: 453 covers: - Lifestyle - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Debt - Economy and Politics - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology also_seen_in: - Newsweek - International Business Times - CBS News - Good Morning America - WUSA9 - Pix 11 - The New York Times - Mashable - The Washington Post - CNBC - Politico social: - https://x.com/superjulia - https://www.linkedin.com/in/julia-glum published: '2026-09-21T14:50:20.000Z' modified: '2026-09-21T14:50:20.000Z' section: Lifestyle tags: - News word_count: 1044 canonical: https://money.com/how-to-avoid-buying-ai-slop/ type: NewsArticle source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Ai slop images](https://img.money.com/2026/09/News-AI-Slop-avoid.jpg) Whether you’re buying a book, streaming a song or shopping for art, you've probably asked yourself at least once: Wait, did a person actually make this? Generative AI has become so popular and inexpensive that anyone can churn out content in seconds for next to nothing. Enterprising sellers have realized this — and are flooding the market with mass-produced [AI](https://money.com/artificial-intelligence/) products, which can turn a profit even if only a small share of them find buyers. Often labeled "AI slop," this content is increasingly harder to tell apart from the human stuff as GenAI models grow more complex. It's also increasingly impacting people's spending decisions. Intentionally buying an AI-created product is one thing; doing it accidentally is another. “Everything gets all fuddled together in one big content-creative soup,” says Andrew Edelblum, a University of Dayton professor who studies AI-generated music. Some shoppers' concerns are purely practical. For example, you might regret purchasing an AI-generated [book](https://money.com/amazon-kindle-direct-publishing-journals-planners/) if you later find out it contains information that was never fact-checked. Others have ethical qualms. Streaming a synthetic song can direct royalties away from working musicians, just like how ordering an AI poster can reward a seller instead of the artist you thought you were supporting. “Every time an AI product becomes popular, it is displacing or taking away from human products,” says Tuhin Chakrabarty, an AI researcher and computer science professor at Stony Brook University. And as the product gains traction, algorithmic recommendation systems suggest it to more customers, giving commercially successful AI content an even wider reach. Currently, mainstream platforms like Spotify, Amazon and YouTube still aren't transparent enough for everyday users to make informed decisions about paying for AI content. Fortunately, there are still ways to avoid spending your hard-earned cash on AI slop. Here's what you can do: ## Read between the AI-generated lines A recent [study](https://arxiv.org/html/2607.20349) of over 14,000 mostly self-published Amazon e-books found that books containing substantial amounts of AI text earned 11.3% of revenue. Their share of observed sales grew from nearly zero in early 2023 to roughly 20% by the second quarter of 2026. Translation? Though books with no detected AI text still hold most of the top positions in the market, AI-heavy titles have fully moved beyond the fringes. Chakrabarty, who co-authored the study, says that better disclosures could help ensure that shoppers are able to find and buy items they value — regardless of apparent quality. But while [Amazon requires publishers](https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200672390/) to disclose AI-generated material internally, it doesn’t show that information to shoppers. Until major stores provide that transparency, AI-wary customers should closely inspect a book's sample, author and publisher before buying. Look for repetitive passages, a thin author history and implausibly fast publishing schedules. Be especially skeptical if a book boasts unverified medical or legal advice — that's when a cheap purchase can carry a high cost. Alternatively, you can search for books on platforms with heavier restrictions on AI content, like Barnes & Noble and Bookshop.org, which exclude AI-generated books unless they are clearly labeled. You can also check whether a writer has the Authors Guild’s voluntary [Human Authored certification](https://authorsguild.org/human-authored/). ## Check the artist before pressing play In June, the streaming platform [Deezer received](https://newsroom-deezer.com/2026/07/ai-music-exceeds-50-percent-daily-uploads-deezer/) about 90,000 fully AI-generated tracks each day, exceeding half of new uploads at their peak. The technology is making AI songs faster to produce and harder to identify by ear. Edelblum can attest to that. In his research, he fed amateur voice recordings into Suno, an AI music generator, and watched them “become fully fledged compositions within seconds.” He says “the speed and quality all coming together” is alarming for musicians, who already have a tough time competing for listeners and royalties. Fans appear to value music differently when they know where it came from. An [experiment](https://www.ifo.de/en/cesifo/publications/2026/working-paper/when-music-made-ai-effects-preferences-and-willingness-pay/) from the Center for Economic Studies in Munich found that disclosing a song was AI-generated lowered listeners' average willingness to pay for it by about 31%. Edelblum's research found that AI disclosure didn't significantly reduce listeners' enjoyment. Instead, it affected what they did next. “When they know the music is AI-generated, they don’t want to share it with friends," he says. “They don't want to share the artist's whole catalog.” That gap suggests authorship is a better yardstick than sound quality when deciding what your listening supports. To vet whether a song is AI, check the artist’s credits, release history, live performances and presence outside your streaming service to verify their authenticity. An enormous catalog or inconsistent biography should raise questions — although neither proves AI use. Using smaller, artist-first platforms can also help. Deezer labels detected AI music and excludes it from recommendations, while [Bandcamp bans](https://blog.bandcamp.com/2026/01/13/keeping-bandcamp-human/) music generated wholly or substantially by AI. ## Look beyond malformed fingers A [Stanford study](https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2025/05/ai-generated-art-study-researtch-consumers-creators) of 3.2 million images and 62,000 producers found that allowing AI images to compete in a marketplace with images made by people increased monthly supply by 78% and total sales by 39%. It also, however, coincided with an additional 23% decline in non-AI artists. Simply put, the flood of AI art is making original creators harder to find. Jingna Zhang, a photographer and founder of the [artist platform Cara](https://cara.app/explore), says AI copies of her photography now appear beside her own work in search results. Synthetic images target the same keywords and clients, which poses a real business risk: “How can human creators compete with that volume of output?” she says. Zhang adds that spotting AI imagery by sight is already difficult. While angled hands, melted hair and garbled text were obvious AI red flags in the past, they now just signal that someone used an outdated model to generate the image (or failed to clean it up afterward). Advanced models can now pump out high-quality graphics that easily fool viewers. Before paying for a print, commission or download, reverse-search the image. You can review the seller’s older work and ask about the process. Or look them up: A portfolio with sketches, revisions and years of consistent work is stronger evidence than a visual tell. Be wary of free detectors, too. Zhang says some are unreliable, while others require a license to train on uploaded images. 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