This makes me think of the paper-to-media pipeline; scientific papers are high information density. Its press release summarizes the finding. Then the popular science and social media posts come that oversimplify and embellish the findings.

So from "this table of stellar luminocity observations shows x y and z" to computer renders of green/blue planets with captions of "LIFE FOUND IN SPAAAACE!".

Before AI slop, there was corporate slop. It served the same purpose and was generated in largely the same way. But it was only deployed where it was worth the cost of creation.