Grandma slop is tearing families apart

A Getty stock photograph of two children put through ChatGPT with the prompt "Turn this image into Polar Express Christmas special." Getty Images; ChatGPT Alyssa Powell/BI When Ben Metcalfe recently visited his grandparents, he was greeted by an AI-generated caricature of one of their family photos hanging on the kitchen wall.

"I understand that there was good intention behind doing it," says Metcalfe, a Gen Zer who works in AI governance.

"At the same time, it's a major privacy concern." Jen, a 32-year-old mom, tells me that last Christmas her mom texted her a series of adorable images: Jen's two toddlers sitting in Santa's lap, then riding the Polar Express.

Their cheeks were fuller than she knew them to be, their eyes glossier, the lighting pristine — all thanks to Grok, xAI's chatbot.

"It's so cute.

And I want to love it," she tells me.

But it was too unsettling to embrace.

Jen, whose name has been changed to avoid sparking more family drama, says she's read news about Grok generating sexual abuse material , and worries about how the bot could use her children's faces in the future.

It's not just her mom.

For Mother's Day, a friend sent her a coloring sheet with her kids' faces, and her brother-in-law used AI to add one of her kids to a family photo who had been covered by a stroller, napping, when it was taken, she says.

Everyone means well, Jen says, but they're walking blindly into a big risk, and the technology is so new, she isn't even sure what boundaries are best to set around how loved ones use her children's images with AI.

"We all aren't educated enough about what AI companies are doing with our content," she says.

Welcome to the intergenerational slop fight.

In one corner are growing ranks of lawmakers calling for kids to be booted from social media , and parents concerned about data privacy opting to share less with AI companies and social media platforms.