Is Saturday Night Live now using undeclared AI images to illustrate Weekend Update jokes?
That’s the question that lingers after the NBC institution accompanied a Colin Jost gag with a picture that looked like it was generated via an artificial intelligence app.
“This week, President Trump led a rally celebrating his handling of the economy, which, for some reason, he held at a casino in the Poconos,” Jost said.
“Which is kind of weird to say: the future is brighter than ever. Isn’t that right? Woman on oxygen playing the nickel slots.”
The punchline could have doubled as a text prompt, given the image depicted Jost’s words, but with all the uncanny hallmarks of AI slop so readily available on social media.
Deadline screenshotted the picture in question and ran it through Hive’s AI detector. The result: a 99.9% probability that SNL‘s image was AI-generated.
A Saturday Night Live spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Viewers noted that the image detracted from Jost’s joke.
Josh Billinson, a senior social media editor at Semafor, wrote: “A lot of reasons why SNL using AI for stuff like this sucks, but my main gripe is just that it’s less funny! The intentionally kind of janky photoshops are part of the joke and beat the weird smooth AI aesthetic.”
Gillian Branstetter, a communications strategist for the American Civil Liberties Union, added: “What they know is most people won’t notice and even fewer will care. This is really how AI will spread–slowly degrading the quality of everything.”
Others noted that AI could have also been used by SNL to depict an illustrated Christmas storybook during a separate segment on Saturday’s show.
NBCUniversal does not have a public document outlining its AI principles in editorial content, but it is unequivocal about how the technology should be declared in political ads. In its AI policy, it requires advertisers to “prominently disclose” to viewers material that contains “synthetic media.”
SNL roasted AI imagery as recently as last month in a Glen Powell sketch. Titled AI Photos, the skit featured a grandmother reliving her past through app, Old Time Photos Brought to Life, which shonkily animated images to show a woman smoking a hot dog and floating bowling balls.