Rob Horning’s essay Born Sloppy has been on my mind for the past week or so.
Fixating on slop as a form of content, as a kind of necessary evil, a shipwreck that is invented with the ship, helps naturalize the inevitable proliferation of “AI” technology that doesn’t serve to improve the lives of most of the people exposed to it.
In it he digs into some of the implications of the sudden popularity of the term “slop” as a name for the indistinct pap that “AI” fans ooze at you in lieu of giving another human being the respect of actual communication. It’s a word that’s necessary in that the abysmal mediocrity that is “AI” output has become such an identifiable phenomenon that popular radio personalities here in Iceland can use the phrase “it’s a bit AI” (“þetta er svolítið gervigreindarlegt”) in their banter and not only do their listeners – possibly the least tech-savvy demographic available – immediately get what they mean, it even has very specific connotations for exactly what specific smell and flavour – vibe – of mediocrity they mean.
It’s a form of media so perfectly “mid” that it becomes distinctly identifiable clearly deserves its own term.
The problem for those who promote “AI” despite the devastating consequences to the public – deep fakes, collapsing search engines, declining software quality, patently insecure integration, devastating environmental impact – is that the public has already chosen a term for this.
“Slop” is an attempt to obscure the fact that we have a perfectly good word for “unwanted AI-generated content”.
AI
That’s what “AI” means today because it’s what you get out of these models. The meaningless and empty mediocrity isn’t the exception, it’s the default – the norm. It’s to creativity and intelligence what artificial flavouring is to gourmet baking. It’s the Red No. 3 of media production and critical thinking.
The industry needs this term because if the “E-number additive, but for creative work” connotation of “AI” becomes a permanent fixture in the public’s mind, the consumer side of their burgeoning tech bubble is dead in the water.
They’ll have to settle for manipulating the more gullible parts of the financial and tech industries, which becomes harder when you don’t have a consumer bubble on your side.
They’ll always have the true believers, though. Who these days are more and more exuding that “divorced dad posing with a Cybertruck” poser energy.