Perhaps more so than any other social media platform, LinkedIn has been inundated with lazy AI-generated brainrot content. It has become the AI slop “punching bag,” a repository of painful engagement bait being spewed out by an army of bots who seem at times to mainly be lobbing business platitudes at one another.
Just last week, Substack CEO Chris Best took aim at the Microsoft-owned career site when he announced the launch of an AI detector feature “because we’re sick of slop and we don’t want Substack to turn into LinkedIn.”
According to AI detection company Pangram, a shocking two thirds of LinkedIn posts are showing up as being AI generated by users of its browser extension. More than 40 percent of longform posts were flagged as “fully AI-generated,” according to the company.
Credit where credit’s due: LinkedIn has seemingly caught on to the abysmal state of its service, quietly introducing a new button that allows users to flag a post that “seems like AI slop.”
“Genuinely thought it was a joke until I clicked on a few posts,” one user wrote in a Bluesky post after discovering the feature.
It’s a baffling move, but probably well intentioned. Whether LinkedIn will act on what will likely be a massive influx of flagged posts remains to be seen, however. Once flagged, the post becomes hidden to the user, but it’s unclear whether somebody at LinkedIn will review it.
As 404 Media points out, the inclusion of the new button is particularly surprising, because LinkedIn is simultaneously encouraging users to generate AI slop through an AI-powered writing assistant.
“LinkedIn’s AI-powered writing assistant will share personalized suggestions for your profile, to help you stand out and get noticed,” the company’s website reads. “The AI-powered suggestions are personalized based on your profile information and incorporate insights from analyzing millions of profiles.”
The company also started scraping user data without permission to train so-called AI “coworkers” last year, a dubious experiment that was shut down almost immediately.
It’s clear that the subject of AI is proving divisive in the LinkedIn c-suite. In a May 20 update, LinkedIn promised that it was looking to keep “conversations real” by keeping “AI slop” at bay.
“When AI is overused, especially at scale and in an automated way, it dilutes the valuable insights that real human conversations can spark,” LinkedIn executive editor Laura Lorenzetti wrote in the update. “It’s ok to use AI to help you write, but your posts and comments need to represent your voice and your perspectives. The ultimate value comes from the human behind the tool.”
To allegedly “strengthen authenticity,” LinkedIn is working on “technology systems” that “have been trained to recognize signals of AI slop,” according to Lorenzetti.
Judging by the latest news, it’s looking to leverage its own frustrated user base to stop LinkedIn from drowning in a bot-infested sea of slop. Only time will tell if it’s too late.
More on LinkedIn: AI “Coworkers” Profiles Prove Too Stupid Even For LinkedIn