The glut of images resulting from the democratization of image creation has given rise to a new luxury: criteria.
You open Instagram, TikTok, or X, and for a few minutes, everything looks amazing. Impossible landscapes, hyperrealistic portraits, scenes that defy all logic, videos that look like they’re straight out of a blockbuster movie. However, you close the app and can barely remember a single image from what you just saw. It’s not that the internet produces fewer interesting images. It’s just that it has never produced so many at the same time. The problem is no longer accessing them. It’s getting one to stick in your memory.
Much of this phenomenon has been summarized under a single concept: “AI Slop,” a term used to describe the flood of AI-generated images inundating social media—and which, of course, speaks to a visual culture that has begun to prioritize quantity over meaning.
To understand how the value of images is changing at a time when producing them has never been easier, we spoke with three creators who have spent years exploring the boundaries of visual language from different disciplines. Filip Custic, a multidisciplinary artist known for creating some of the most recognizable visual worlds in the Spanish and international creative scenes; Chino Moya, an internationally acclaimed filmmaker and visual artist; and YZA Voku, a digital artist and creative director who has developed projects for artists such as The Weeknd.
Filip Custic doesn’t even mention artificial intelligence when I ask him what makes an image memorable. He talks about responsibility: “My guiding principle is always to try to make a cultural contribution,” he explains. He doesn’t talk about virality, metrics, or trends. He talks about expanding the collective imagination and working “with love and respect for the discipline.” In an era obsessed with producing more, his response comes across as almost countercultural.
That idea resurfaces when he acknowledges that, over time, he has learned to distinguish between when a work arises from a genuine need and when it simply responds to the pressure to produce. This reflection shifts the focus of the debate to a much more interesting place. Perhaps the real problem with AI Slop isn’t artificial intelligence, but rather the fact that production has become an end in itself.
The internet rewards volume; art, historically, never has. Custic doesn’t demonize engagement either. On the contrary. He believes that a work of art can connect with millions of people and that this only amplifies its cultural impact. The difference, he insists, lies in the starting point: engagement cannot be the goal of the creative process, but rather a consequence of it.
It may seem like a subtle distinction, but it completely changes the logic of creation. An image designed to generate interaction and one created to express an idea may end up yielding exactly the same metrics. What sets them apart is not the result, but the intention behind their creation. And perhaps that is where an essential part of the artist’s creative value lies today: not so much in the image they produce, but in the reason they choose to produce it.
We have always admired artists for their ability to bring an idea to life. Today, anyone can create a technically flawless image in a matter of seconds. When execution is no longer exceptional, the value begins to shift elsewhere. It’s no longer just about knowing how to produce something. It’s about knowing why it’s worth doing.
That idea ties directly into a reflection offered by Chino Moya, a filmmaker and artist. When I ask him what an image loses when it ceases to be part of a narrative, his answer is as simple as it is devastating: “An image without a narrative, without a concept, becomes an empty image—content that conveys little information, like ultra-processed food that has hardly any nutrients.”
The comparison goes far beyond a clever metaphor. Just as the food industry discovered decades ago how to manufacture products capable of triggering our impulses while providing us with hardly any nutritional value, the internet seems to have learned how to produce images designed to capture our attention while leaving hardly a trace. We see them, react, and keep scrolling. Five minutes later, most of them have already vanished from our memory.
Perhaps that is why AI Slop should not be understood as a technological issue, but rather as the most visible symptom of an economy that has learned to reward immediate attention over meaning. It is no longer about creating images that someone might want to remember, but about producing stimuli capable of surviving for a few seconds within the algorithm.
Chino Moya, however, proposes shifting the debate in a different direction. For him, artificial intelligence does not spell the end of creativity, but rather the beginning of a new era in the history of images. Just as the invention of photography transformed painting and cinema changed the way we tell stories, AI will inevitably alter the visual language. The tools, processes, and even the artist’s very identity will change. But precisely for that reason, he argues, storytelling will become even more important.
“These days, anyone can create an image with high production values, even if they have no artistic talent whatsoever. What we humans can bring to the process is precisely a story.”
This assertion forces us to rethink one of the most frequently repeated ideas since the advent of AI: that it democratizes creativity. Perhaps creativity was never really about production, but rather about the ability to construct meaning from it.
What has indeed become more accessible is the execution. Today, creating a technically flawless image is no longer reserved for those who have mastered a specific discipline. The tools are increasingly accessible, and the barriers to entry are getting lower. Far from heralding the end of the artist, this change shifts the focus of creative value toward what is much more difficult to automate: a unique perspective, a recognizable sensibility, and the ability to construct a meaningful universe.
If anyone can produce a spectacular image, spectacularity alone is no longer enough. And when technique ceases to be a distinguishing factor, other abilities—ones that are much harder to automate—begin to take on greater importance: building a world of one’s own, connecting references, developing a recognizable sensibility, or finding a unique way of looking at the world. In other words, technology is shifting the value from production to critical thinking.
It’s interesting that this same idea appears, in different words, in Filip Custic’s answers. When I ask him if we’re confusing spectacle with creativity, he avoids falling into a simplistic dichotomy. For him, a work can be both at the same time. The important thing isn’t to sacrifice visual impact, but rather that this impact stems from an idea rather than a formula. Because a spectacular image may make someone stop scrolling, but only one with meaning manages to linger in the mind even after the phone is turned off.
In an age when creating images takes just a few seconds, perhaps the true creative work no longer lies in producing more, but in deciding what deserves to exist. YZA Voku introduces a concept that quietly permeates all of contemporary creation: discernment. “Creating is abundance; discarding is discernment,” the artist sums up. The phrase seems simple, but it describes one of the greatest changes visual production has undergone in decades.
In the past, the creative process was constrained by scarcity. Taking a photograph meant dealing with a limited number of rolls of film. Shooting a movie required a budget. Even digital retouching was limited by the time and resources available. Every decision meant giving up many others.
Now, generating a hundred versions of the same image costs practically the same as generating just one. Abundance ceases to be a technical problem and becomes a creative one. And that is precisely where the paradox lies: The fewer barriers there are to production, the more important it becomes to know when to stop, the more important it becomes to choose, and the more important it becomes to let go.
YZA insists that what is truly human has never been found in pixels, but rather in “intention, selection, and omission.” This is a particularly interesting idea because it introduces a word that rarely comes up when we talk about artificial intelligence: omission. However, it is probably one of the most important actions in any creative process. Creating has never been solely about adding elements to a work; it has also involved deciding what to leave out. A photographer chooses a frame and discards dozens of possibilities. A director cuts scenes during editing. A designer tries out versions that will never see the light of day. Creativity has always been, in part, an exercise in editing.
The advent of artificial intelligence does not eliminate that need; rather, it intensifies it. The easier it becomes to produce images, the more important it becomes to develop the discernment needed to decide which ones deserve to exist. Abundance ceases to be a technical challenge and becomes a creative one. In a context where generating hundreds of versions of the same image requires little effort, the true value no longer lies in producing more, but in knowing when to stop.
That reflection ties into another of YZA’s central ideas. “You can generate images or plagiarize ideas, but the gaze cannot be replicated. The experience will always be human.” The difference between the two is fundamental. A tool can learn a style, reproduce a composition, or imitate a particular aesthetic, but it is much more difficult to replicate the way a person connects references, interprets the world, or finds unexpected relationships between seemingly unrelated concepts.
What’s most interesting is that this conclusion comes up repeatedly in conversations with the three artists, even though each arrives at it from a different perspective. Filip Custic speaks of the need to make a cultural contribution; Chino Moya argues that the true value of an image lies in the narrative it constructs; and YZA focuses on criteria. These are different concepts, but they all point in the same direction: at a time when producing images has never been easier, creative value no longer lies solely in the ability to create them but rather in the ability to imbue them with meaning.
Perhaps that is also why we should rethink one of the great promises that has accompanied artificial intelligence since its rise to popularity: the idea that it democratizes creativity. What it has actually democratized is production. And the two are not the same thing. Because producing images was never the ultimate goal of art. The goal has always been to develop a perspective capable of transforming an idea into something that endures.
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