Future Fridays · Early Finisher

FLOCK & SLOP

You may have heard of AI slop. This is what it looks like when it comes from Google.

Futurism · Joe Wilkins · Aug 5, 2026

Full article: PDF
What to do: Read the article on the next slide. Fill out the form on the right side of the screen as you go. Same trap-hunting rules apply — every wrong option is one of the four traps.
Google’s AI Is Telling Users That Flock Cameras Are Filled With Valuable Gold and Copper
Futurism · Joe Wilkins · Aug 5, 2026 · subtitle: “It’s AI-on-AI violence.”
A Flock automatic license plate reader camera mounted on a pole with a solar panel at a suburban intersection.
A Flock ALPR (automatic license plate reader) mounted at a street intersection. · Photo: Matthew G Eddy / Shutterstock / Futurism
  1. Google’s notorious AI Overview just handed would-be Flock
  2. vandals a perfect excuse to carve into the company’s
  3. controversial AI-integrated license plate readers (ALPRs).
  4. ALPRs are wildly unpopular, especially online, where
  5. privacy-minded communities trade memes and videos cheering
  6. on destruction of the surveillance equipment. One of the
  7. more popular bits in this space centers on the idea that
  8. Flock’s ALPRs are supposedly packed with valuable metals
  9. like gold, copper, and zinc — so, the tongue-in-cheek
  10. riffing goes, why not crack one open and cash in at the
  11. nearest scrapyard?
  12. Clever or not, the meme hinges on a spurious claim.
  13. ALPRs do contain trace amounts of gold and other metals,
  14. just not enough to be worth the trouble. Unless you’re
  15. well versed in breaking down circuit boards, you’d be hard
  16. pressed to earn enough to buy a Big Mac, let alone recoup
  17. your labor costs.
  18. Google, itself an exemplar of AI-enabled surveillance,
  19. apparently missed the joke.
  20. Search “how much gold does a Flock camera have” and
  21. Google’s AI Overview doesn’t even push back a little bit.
  22. Instead, it flatly asserts that a “Flock safety camera
  23. contains about 1 to 5 grams of gold used in its internal
  24. circuit boards and wiring.” (At today’s gold prices, that
  25. would mean each Flock camera contained up to $650 of gold.)
Screenshot of a Google search for 'how much gold does a flock camera have.' Google's AI Overview states: 'A Flock safety camera contains about 1 to 5 grams of gold used in its internal circuit boards and wiring.' A Metal and Material Breakdown lists Gold ~1-5 grams, Copper ~2 to 23 pounds, Other Metals. A sidebar shows two source sites including an Instagram post titled 'Flock safety cameras contain recoverable precious metals and...'
The evidence: Google’s AI Overview asserting the 1–5 grams of gold claim as fact, with a sidebar showing the two sources it drew from — an anonymous Substack post and an AI-generated Instagram post. · Screenshot: Futurism
  1. Google goes on to claim that Flock’s ALPRs hold anywhere
  2. from two to 23 pounds of copper, which would be an
  3. engineering marvel considering the whole device only
  4. weighs three pounds.
  5. Google’s AI Overview cites two sources to back up its
  6. summary, and neither holds up.
  7. The first is an anonymous Substack post from an account
  8. called do.not.obey.do.not.comply, claiming the “rough
  9. scrap value of these metals per camera is estimated to be
  10. $150 to $500.” Google’s summary skips the fine print,
  11. however: that figure comes from “estimates based on
  12. scrap-value discussions” — vibes, in other words, as
  13. opposed to actual reporting or financial information.
  14. The second is an AI-generated Instagram post riffing on
  15. the same meme, egging vandals on to gut the camera to
  16. access their supposedly precious innards. The account
  17. behind that post seems to belong to a weed grower, with
  18. most other posts about plant cloning, hydroponics, and
  19. fully grown cannabis flower.
  20. There’s a real irony buried in all this AI slop: one
  21. AI-surveillance company’s search engine is quietly
  22. manufacturing an excuse to destroy another AI-surveillance
  23. company’s product. If that doesn’t sum up the current
  24. state of the AI-obsessed tech industry, nothing will.
  25. Google didn’t respond to a request for comment.
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