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Think finding a house is hard? Enter AI slop in real estate listings

Listings now sometimes contain AI-generated photos and videos — featuring things like a hallucinated staircase or missing kitchen cabinets.

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Online real estate listings can contain misleading AI-generated content, leaving some people are surprised when they tour a home in person.
Online real estate listings can contain misleading AI-generated content, leaving some people are surprised when they tour a home in person.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

You’ve probably noticed AI-generated photos and videos while scrolling through social media. But now the content is entering the world of real estate and showing up in listings on platforms like Zillow, as Kat Tenbarge wrote about in WIRED. She spoke with “Marketplace” host Kai Ryssdal about what it means that AI is now messing with how people find housing — often the most expensive part of their lives.

“The technology is often creating images that it will hallucinate,” Tenbarge said. “It will add in staircases that don’t really exist, it will put rooms in different places.”

Click the audio player above to hear their conversation.

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