Surprise, surprise: People don’t want AI slop on ‘SNL’

Across the internet, eagle-eyed sleuths are crying “AI slop” after Saturday Night Live aired segments with what looks like AI-generated imagery.

The first instance, from Saturday’s cold open, shows an illustrated Christmas storybook. The images feature a hazy, yellowish hue and an image of streets that don’t connect. The next, during “Weekend Update,” showed an image of a woman playing a slot machine in an otherwise empty casino while using an oxygen tank with tubes that weren’t connected.

While the images were on-screen for mere seconds, they have led to some very vocal backlash by fans, who are convinced they are AI-generated. On Reddit, viewers called them “gross” and “a shame,” while a Bluesky user said simply, “Booooooo.” That Week In SNL, a podcast, was having none of it.

AI fatigue is real, and the accusations against Saturday’s episode landed amid a wider conversation about AI-generated media. McDonald’s Netherlands pulled an AI-generated ad from its YouTube page last week following widespread negative comments. Meanwhile, the studio behind Coca-Cola’s widely criticized new AI-generated holiday ad admitted it wasn’t 100% ready. Merriam-Webster on Sunday named “slop” its 2025 word of the year.

Slop in an ad is one thing. But slop on a show like SNL strikes a nerve, considering how well-known the long-running show is for its intricate human-made sets and costuming. This is a show made by hand, and the janky Photoshop jobs during Weekend Update are part of the joke.

SNL has joked about artificial intelligence in sketches this year, including one in January starring Timothée Chalamet and Bowen Yang that poked fun at AI’s proclivity for producing images of people with extra fingers. And in a sketch last month, Glen Powell played a grandpa pictured in old photos brought to life in an AI app gone wrong.

NBC, which airs SNL, has not confirmed that the images are AI-generated, and the network did not respond to a request for comment.

SNL’s visual effects workers unionized in July, and their contract included AI protections that VFX artist Richard Lampasone said at the time are “a worker-centric AI policy that will help us keep doing our best work as our craft evolves.”