The Sloppiest Thing About AI

A new essay argues that the term 'slop' is being used to dismiss AI-generated work without evaluation, a habit that predates AI but has been amplified by it. The piece contends that focusing on stylistic markers like em dashes or lists as evidence of AI involvement allows people to avoid critical thinking.

There is a fashionable new way to avoid thinking. Notice an em dash, a tidy list or a sentence with suspiciously polished edges. Announce that AI was involved. Dismiss the whole thing. The post may be correct. The product may work. The patch may fix the bug. None of that matters once the detector in someone’s head has beeped. The work has been placed in the AI bucket, the bucket has been labelled slop , and judgment can stop before it becomes tiring. AI did not create this habit. It merely brought it to the surface. Plenty of people have always cared more about the signals surrounding an idea than the idea itself. Tell them a person they admire said something and they lean forward. Tell them the same words came from someone they despise and they stop listening. Now authorship by a machine provides an even cheaper excuse.