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Summarised by Centrist
Andrew Lensen and Andrew Geddis, writing in The Conversation, describe the rise of so-called “AI slop”.
The term, which has been named Macquarie Dictionary’s Word of the Year for 2025, refers to generative AI used at scale to flood social media with “often deliberately misleading text, images and video, siphoning clicks away from real news sources and confusing readers”.
In New Zealand, AI-generated fake images of January’s Mount Maunganui landslide were “widely shared, misleading people at a time of national disaster”.
On Facebook, “bogus news sites have shared deep-fake AI videos purporting to show New Zealand politicians meeting at Waitangi and making policy announcements”.
The authors argue that, “At virtually no cost, and with minimal technical skill, almost anyone can now use AI to produce a smear campaign that would once have required professional illustration.” They also warn that “foreign actors could use AI to interfere in New Zealand’s electoral process”.
New Zealand law regulates “election advertisements” broadly and requires promoter statements and spending caps. But “few constraints apply to the actual content”.
Publishing a statement known to be false to influence voters is illegal only in the final three days before polling day, a safeguard the authors say is “weaker now that voting takes place over 12 days”. Because advance voting now runs for nearly two weeks, most ballots are cast before that three-day restriction applies.
They propose requiring disclosure of AI use in campaign advertising and extending the rule against “deliberate lies” across the entire advance voting period.
