The Brief

The website Your AI Slop Bores Me takes its name from a meme people on social media use to criticize AI-generated content. The site — a fake AI chatbot — has only been around for about a month. But its creator, Mihir Maroju, said it's already received more than 25 million unique visitors and nearly 280 million total hits.

"People are spending hours on the site," the 17-year-old high school graduate in Puducherry, India said in an interview with NPR. "I didn't really expect it to be so addictive."

As with real AI chatbots like Gemini, Claude and ChatGPT, anyone can submit a request for an image or information by typing it into the youraislopbores.me interface. But in this case, the response doesn't come from an algorithm — just another human.

The joy of playing AI chatbot dress-up

More than one third of U.S. adults have used ChatGPT, according to a June 2025 Pew Research study. People are not only deploying AI chatbots for everything from planning trips to doing homework assignments — they are also having fun impersonating them.

"Someone asked me to draw a bat eating a strawberry," said San Francisco-based cartoonist Amy Kurzweil, author of the chatbot-oriented graphic memoir, Artificial: A Love Story, of her interactions on youraislopbores.me. "That was really fun." The site forces its human users to approximate the speed at which a machine would return a response; there's a 75-second time limit. So drawings, created with a mouse or finger on a trackpad, have a necessarily slapdash look.

Amy Kurzweil created her drawing of a bat eating a strawberry in response to a request on Your AI Slop Bores Me

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Amy Kurzweil

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In addition to responding to queries, Kurzweil said she's also enjoyed asking questions through the site. "I asked someone what they were reading. They said they were reading Twisted Hate, but they liked Twisted Games more." (Kurzweil said the exchange inspired her to look these titles up — they're part of a romance series by Ana Huang.)

With its old-school Comic Sans MS font — a staple of websites in the late 1990s and early 2000s — the cartoonist said Your AI Slop Bores Me inspires nostalgia for a time when the Internet was, for the most part, a lively, friendly place.

"I do think that people are reaching a point of frustration with the Internet being flooded with non-humans," Kurzweil said. "So I think people are having fun reclaiming some of the magic of the early Internet, just for the little joy of connection."

When NPR's Chloe Veltman asked youraislopbores.me a question about pink pompoms, an anonymous human provided a delightful response.

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Chloe Veltman

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Screenshot from youraislopbores.me

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Because the digital landscape has changed a lot since the late 1990s, Your AI Slop Bores Me's administrators said they have implemented tools that try to flag and filter out harmful or illegal contributions. "We had a lot of spam and people exploiting loopholes in the site," Maroju said. "Of late, we haven't had those issues.

The users of the site know their questions will be answered by humans. If its URL doesn't make this clear, the two tabs users can select from on the homepage — "human" and "larp as ai" (which means humans get to "Live Action Role-Play" as AI) — certainly do.

When the user doesn't know it's fake

But some parts of the AI-bot-dressup universe, such as Ben Palmer's brand of comedy, operate under different rules.

In a deadpan, 2023 skit on YouTube, the Nashville-based comedian talks about a fake ChatGPT website he set up not long after the real ChatGPT took off.

"Sometimes people end up on the website thinking that they're writing to the actual ChatGPT. But they're writing to me," he explains. Palmer goes on to describe his back and forth with a user in China — where the actual ChatGPT has been banned since 2023 — who unwittingly finds themselves on the comedian's fake version:

"They asked me to write an article on global climate change. And I tried to tell them that this isn't the real ChatGPT; it's a joke. And they wrote back and said, 'This is no joke.' And I gave them the address to the real ChatGPT, and said, 'I'm too lazy to write an article.' And they said, 'I need your help.'"

Palmer goes on to explain how he asks the real ChatGPT to write the requested article, which he then sends on to the user. He finally uses AI to translate the text, also at the user's request, into Chinese.

In an interview with NPR, Palmer said he set up a bunch of fake AI text and image generation sites with URLs very similar to the names of the real AI websites. He says some users would get angry when they realized they were being pranked by a human. But others played along. "They would keep going because they were now being entertained," he said.

The dark side 

The comedian said most of his sites have been pulled down from various platforms. He admitted there's a dark side to disguising himself as a bot. For example, he has declined to fulfill requests for sexually explicit content.

Palmer said his aim is to remind people that the Internet should be a messy, vibrant place — not one overrun by soulless corporations. "I want to see how people react when they think that they're talking to an AI and it goes off the rails," he said. "Sometimes they might surprise you."

"As more and more people embrace AI, it's naturally starting to show up across pop culture," said ChatGPT maker OpenAI in an email to NPR. "We love seeing how people are bringing ChatGPT into their daily lives, and the humor that comes with it is part of what makes that so fun."

San Francisco-based angel investor Brianne Kimmel, who has backed several AI agent startups, concurs.

"Humans pretending to be AI — that's great sketch comedy. But it doesn't mean we're going to use the technology less," Kimmel said. "It just means we recognize that there's a very clear language that's evolving around how we communicate with bots that's distinct from how we communicate with each other."

Copyright 2026 NPR

Southern California was built on radio.

"I can still hear the jingle KFWB News 98,” wrote  Taline in Los Feliz, during a recent conversation on LAist's daily news show, AirTalk, which airs on 89.3 FM. “I grew up hearing that in my dad's minivan on the way to and from school. It has a special place in my heart.”

Back in April, broadcast company Audacy announced KNX News — one of the last-remaining all-news FM stations — was leaving the FM dial where it had simulcast on 97.1 FM since 2021. The station, which is also one of the oldest in L.A., is not budging from 1070 AM where it has been on the air for more than 100 years. The move away from FM officially happened in May to make way for a new sports talk station, which Audacy officials called an area of growth for advertisers in today’s media landscape.

The move is one in a long line of changes for radio and a reminder that before podcasts, playlists and algorithms, many Southern Californians built their days around radio broadcasts.

Radio, a daily ritual

The construction of KNX

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Herman J. Schultheis

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Michael Jackson, a well-known KNX, personality

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Larry Mantle, now in his 41st year hosting AirTalk, remembers being a kid and dreaming of what it might be like to be behind the mic at one of these radio stations.

“ I grew up with KNX," he said. “My dream job as a kid was to be an anchor on KNX or KFWB, the two local all-news radio stations, 'cause there was nothing like hosting AirTalk that even existed at that point.”

Mantle opened up the phone lines on a recent show to hear from his fellow SoCal radio lovers about the shows they miss and the memories they have. Here's what they had to say:

A love for radio, then and now  

A pilot of KMPC's traffic alert helicopter pictured with his daughter and grandson.

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Los Angeles Public Library

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A 1963 picture of Valley State College (now Los Angeles Valley College) preparing to launch KVCM

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Larry Leach

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Los Angeles Public Library

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“When you'd walk down Hollywood Boulevard where the station was, you could hear it playing as you went down the street,” said  Olivia in Glendale about KLAC 570 with Al Jarvis.

 Larry in Yorba Linda shouted out KBCA Jazz for its 24-hour jazz, saying “When I first moved out here in '68 from Phoenix, which had like an hour a week, it was a real wonder.”

 Mark in Glassell Park emailed that he loves KCRW’s Henry Rollins, writing, “I used to bristle at his unique DJ persona, but over time, I came to love him and his crazy eclectic playlists. I find his knowledge in history and punk rock fascinating. He's a gem and a legend."

"I'd like to give a shout-out to all the DJs working at KXLU, the college station at Loyola Marymount University, said  Jeremy in Culver City in an email. “That station's been on the air for nearly 60 years. I believe it's one of the best examples of what's possible with radio."

"KFWB and KRLA back in the day when they were rock music stations —  Dr. Demento, one of my favorite on-air personalities, also had eclectic music taste," said  Carrie in Desert Edge.

“ Dr. Demento was must listening when I was a kid in junior high school at Le Conte Junior High in Hollywood,” Mantle added. “Every Sunday night on KMET, we would make sure we were listening to Dr. Demento and his funny records.”

The question remains…

An 11-year-old winning a car in a KMPC contest in 1963.

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Listener support is vital to any radio station, and it’s clear KNX has many lifelong fans. AirTalk listeners highlighted their support for household KNX names over the decades like Bill Keene, Melinda Lee, Mike Roy and Jackie Olden.

As KNX makes changes, many are watching closely and thinking about the future of radio.

Listeners like Tommy in La Quinta are left wondering if the radio dial will be the same…

“I’m a hardcore listener, but I don't know about casual listeners [and] if they'll tune to AM,” he said.

After months of hand-wringing, Los Angeles and LA28 have come to a tentative agreement on how Olympics organizers will reimburse the city for its expenses for the 2028 Summer Games.

According to the deal, the private Olympic organizing committee will pay upfront for the estimated cost of services that are not eligible for federal reimbursement, like trash pick-up and traffic control. Under another proposal, the city would also be able to tap an LA28 contingency fund if it isn't fully repaid by the federal government for policing costs at Olympic venues.

The agreement is nearly nine months overdue and still needs approval by Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council.

The 2028 Olympics are intended to be privately financed, and an existing city agreement with LA28 states that the Olympics organizers, not L.A., will pay for extra costs for public services in support of the Games. But L.A. is the financial back-stop for the Olympics, meaning if LA28 goes in the red, taxpayers will pick up the bill.

Beyond that, the city services agreement presents another area where L.A. could incur additional unexpected expenses for hosting the Games. L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez warned LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover earlier this year that a bad deal could "bankrupt" the city.

Jacie Prieto Lopez, an LA28 spokesperson, and Paul Krekorian, who leads the city's office of major events, said in statements that the freshly inked agreement would help deliver a fiscally responsible Games.

"Mayor Bass’ priority is that the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games be fiscally responsible, protect taxpayers, and benefit Angelenos for decades to come. This agreement helps deliver that commitment," Krekorian said.

But the contract between the two parties doesn't fully resolve one of the biggest areas of financial risk for the city: the enormous cost of security for an event as extensive and high-profile as the summer Olympics and Paralympics.

Organizers are counting on the federal government to pay for public safety at Olympic venues that are considered part of a "national special security event." That includes costs for LAPD staffing. LA28 has not included security costs in its $7.1 billion budget — a fact that City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto criticized earlier this year.

The federal government has so far allocated $1 billion for security costs for the Olympics. Exactly where those federal funds will go has not yet been determined, and there's no guarantee they will cover all of L.A.'s policing costs.

To address this, city officials have also proposed an amendment to a 2021 agreement between the city and LA28. That amendment would establish that if L.A. is not reimbursed by the federal government for all its eligible expenses, it could dip into LA28's contingency fund of $270 million before the private organizing committee could use those funds for any legacy projects.

But that bucket of money will first be used for any costs that Olympics organizers still owe if they run out of revenue — meaning if the Olympics don't turn a profit, the city's access to that money will depend on how much is left for the taking.

Civil rights attorney Connie Rice, who has been tracking the city's negotiations with LA28, told LAist the agreement was a "PR document" not a deal. She pointed out that if the federal government does not pay up for security spending as expected, L.A. could be in trouble.

" It leaves the taxpayers with a GoFundMe strategy," she said.

The city services agreement lays the groundwork for more negotiations between LA28 and the city. Each venue will require its own agreement, to be negotiated by July 1, 2027. Venues in the city of L.A. include Dodger Stadium, the L.A. Convention Center, L.A. Memorial Coliseum and the Venice Beach Boardwalk.

The City Council's ad-hoc committee on the 2028 Games will meet Tuesday afternoon to vote on the agreement.