>Telling people to ignore the evidence of their eyes is a hard sell.

Yes, I agree. It took science to prove that life doesn't arise from rotting meat. But the fact that populations (even in developed countries) are rapidly getting less and less educated indicates that people are less and less likely to have the critical thinking skills to understand when their eyes are not adequate instruments of observation.

Also AI slop exists, certainly; people aren't wrong to hate AI slop, but you have to agree that slop isn't the entirety of AI.