A bloke who can’t spell properly. A woman who seems nervous in front of a camera. A musician who hits the wrong note. A slightly blurred photo. A clumsy but personal sentence. A voice that pauses for breath between words. In short, all those imperfections we’ve spent twenty years trying to eliminate could become the new hallmarks of luxury.
Because a strange shift is taking place on the internet.
A study published in August 2026 by the Pew Research Centre analysed nearly half a million English-language web pages from the Common Crawl archives. In its July 2026 sample, around 10 per cent of all pages showed significant signs of having been written or rewritten by artificial intelligence. But the figure becomes far more striking when considering only pages published since the launch of ChatGPT: over a third showed such signs. (Pew Research Centre)
This is obviously not to say that all content produced using AI is bad. That would be absurd. A camera hasn’t done away with the photographer, and Photoshop hasn’t done away with the artist. AI can be a fantastic tool when a person remains in control, making choices, editing, transforming, inventing and, above all, knowing what story they want to tell.
The problem lies elsewhere: when nobody really wants to tell a story anymore.
Welcome to the age of ‘slop’.
The term has come to be used to describe this vast mishmash of text, images and videos generated on an industrial scale for the sole purpose of filling space, provoking a click and grabbing a few seconds of attention. Researchers have begun to study this phenomenon very seriously. A study published in August 2026 on the production of AI-generated viral videos in China describes systems in which creators test formats, set up multiple accounts and industrialise virality. The aim is no longer necessarily to create a work of art or even an identity: it is about moving fast, producing a great deal and constantly adapting to what the algorithm rewards. (Springer Nature Link)
This is probably where the true revolution in cultural AI lies. Not in a machine’s ability to produce a pretty image. That, ultimately, is merely a technical feat. The far more profound revolution lies in being able to produce a virtually unlimited quantity of content at a negligible cost.
And our brains, for their part, have not benefited from the same upgrade.
A day still has twenty-four hours. Our eyes can only take in a limited number of images. We can only read a certain number of articles, listen to a certain number of songs, and watch a certain number of films.
We are therefore entering a strange economy where content is becoming infinite whilst human attention remains desperately limited.
And when something becomes infinitely abundant, its value tends to decrease.
This is where the story gets fascinating.
For as synthetic perfection becomes commonplace, imperfection might well become desirable.
Imagine the internet in five years’ time. Millions of perfectly produced songs. Absolutely stunning virtual models. Flawless videos. Grammatically flawless articles. Splendid voices. Impossible landscapes photographed by people who have never been there. Influencers who do not exist recounting journeys they have never taken to followers, some of whom may not exist either.
Amidst all this, an elderly lady suddenly appears, filmed on a mediocre mobile phone, recounting for three minutes how she met her husband in 1968.
We might just watch those three minutes.
Because she exists.
This is what AI could, paradoxically, put back at the centre of the digital world: proof of existence.
For a long time, we’ve used technology to make humans more perfect. Filters, retouching, auto-correction, autotune, editing, stabilisation, algorithmic recommendations. Now, we risk using imperfection to prove that we are human.
The grain in a photograph. A moment’s hesitation. A mistake. A wrinkle. A breath. A silence that lasts too long.
All these little mishaps, once considered flaws, could become certificates of authenticity.
And that could shake up our culture far more profoundly than we can imagine.
In a world capable of producing ten million flawless images, it may no longer be the flawless image that makes an impression. It will be the one behind which we sense a necessity.
Why was this photograph taken?
Why was this text written?
Why does this song exist?
These three questions are likely to become far more important than: is it technically successful?
This is also excellent news for those who have something to say.
For a few years, we believed that artificial intelligence would make human creativity less valuable because it allowed everyone to produce things. It is possible that the opposite effect may ultimately come to pass. When anyone can create something, creating something no longer holds much value. What becomes rare is having a reason to create it.
The author is thus making a comeback.
Not necessarily the brilliant, revered author, locked away in their ivory tower. Simply someone who observes the world from a specific vantage point and is willing to put their name to that perspective.
I have seen this.
I have experienced this.
I think this.
Three extremely simple sentences that no artificial intelligence can truly utter.
It can write ‘I’.
It cannot have been there.
The internet could thus gradually split into two continents. On the one hand, a vast amount of functional output: practical information, summaries, decorative images, translations, adverts, automated videos and content designed to feed the machines. On the other, something far rarer: traces of humanity.
And we may seek out these traces in exactly the same way that we now search for a piece of handcrafted furniture amongst thousands of mass-produced items.
The paradox would be magnificent.
We would have invented machines capable of imitating humans almost perfectly, only to ultimately rediscover everything that makes humans inimitable.
Doubt.
Bad taste.
Obsessions.
Contradictions.
Scars.
Memories.
And that marvellous ability to sometimes do something that serves absolutely no purpose.
In a few years’ time, the true mark of quality on the internet may be neither ‘4K’, nor ‘artificial intelligence’, nor even ‘high definition’.
It will be much simpler than that.
‘Made by someone.’
