Another Unpacked is nearly upon us. On February 25th, Samsung is expected to announce the Galaxy S26 series of flagship phones — potentially including the S26, S26 Plus, and S26 Ultra — with another round of AI-based features. That will come as a surprise to nobody. But as more AI creeps in on Samsung’s AI phones, there’s one important consideration: the slop factor.

I’m talking, of course, about AI slop. Last week, Samsung put out a blog post promoting a new “seamless Galaxy camera experience” on its newest phones. Based on the examples in the article, that experience includes turning a picture of a puppy into cute little stickers, filling in the part of a cupcake you took a bite out of, brightening video in low light to make it more lively, and editing a picture of a cow in a field to make it look like it’s being abducted by aliens.

Harmless, right? You can do most of that with Samsung’s AI editing tools already, and the blog post implies that you’ll be able to make these kinds of edits with natural language “simply by asking in your own words.” But here’s the line that has me worried we’re not just in for an easier path to cute puppy stickers: “Mobile cameras are moving beyond capture,” it says. Let’s — I’m so sorry to say this — unpack that just a bit.

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“Beyond capture” could be a very weird destination: one where AI is no longer a tool in service of recording reality or even “memories.” It could very well be Slopsville USA, where you just point your camera at a sunset, press the shutter, and tell it how you’d like to embellish the scene. Or maybe just describe the video you want it to create of your friend on his skateboard and let the camera app do the rest. After all, people like Sam Altman seem to think we’re headed for a future where the line between real and AI content is so blurry that we no longer care about the distinction. So what’s the harm if the slop happens to come from your phone camera and not Sora? And is a camera that has moved “beyond capture” even a camera? I’m not so sure.