Post B88slem5rNbPyXOPfU by glyph@mastodon.social
 (DIR) More posts by glyph@mastodon.social
 (DIR) Post #B88slWBHoLPHK46uBc by glyph@mastodon.social
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       There have been a bunch of "moderate" AI pieces (including a few that I have boosted) that have objected to being tarred with the term "slop", and I think there's a real effort right now in the AI booster camp to define the term as an explicit *judgement of quality* — i.e. "this is bad, and it was made with AI, so it's slop" — which retroactively allows every "slop" discussion to center around subjective evaluations of quality / merit / utility etc. For me that's not really what the word means.
       
 (DIR) Post #B88slXCk0QAGUrna5o by glyph@mastodon.social
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       Like, sure, slop does *on average* have a bit of a "quality smell", as it were, but the low quality is downstream of the definition, which is that it was extruded through an "AI" in the first place.To my mind you can make slop that is delightful, inspiring, moving, extremely functional, bug-free, etc. That's a big part of the problem; it's not always possible to tell. You *usually* won't, of course, it's usually bad, but that's not always true.
       
 (DIR) Post #B88slZEETqXum4VnhA by glyph@mastodon.social
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       Yet, if you make something genuinely enjoyable with an "AI", and then you tell your audience about it, as we have seen over and over again, the majority of your audience will not be grateful that you have shown them the error of their ways, *they will be mad at you*. Because it doesn't matter if it's good, it's still slop. You still pointed the slop hose at the audience and sprayed them with it, and the fact that you momentarily tricked them into thinking it was something else makes it *worse*.
       
 (DIR) Post #B88slaxI3oBM86bIZ6 by glyph@mastodon.social
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       There are lots of people right now being coerced into using "AI" tools, who are themselves quite suspicious of the tools in the first place. Not to mention that they don't like being coerced. So they're trying to find the "good way" to use these tools. I am very sympathetic to such people; they are *trying* to walk an ethical tightrope, they believe that if they are being presented with this challenge it _must_ be possible to resolve. So they endeavor not to "make slop" with the slop dispenser.
       
 (DIR) Post #B88slcs2wHAy4QA8fY by glyph@mastodon.social
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       So I think we need to find ways to kindly, but firmly, hold the line. It's slop, you can't make it not be slop just by thinking really hard about it. You can do what you need to do in order to keep your job, and maybe slinging slop is the only avenue still open to you, and I am not going to judge you for that, especially not in this economy.
       
 (DIR) Post #B88slds5DcndApBgMi by glyph@mastodon.social
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       But if you allow yourself to resolve your moral contradictions and compromises by saying "well it's not really a compromise at all, I figured out how to beat the system" then you end up here, getting yourself Orbed https://skepchick.org/2025/05/adam-conover-ruins-his-own-reputation/
       
 (DIR) Post #B88slem5rNbPyXOPfU by glyph@mastodon.social
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       also I gotta say it's pretty fucking gross to watch the people pushing their subordinates onto this tightrope over a moral abyss and then jerking the tightrope back and forth and attempting to cut it, visibly annoyed that those subordinates are attempting to not jump head first into the abyss. "we shoved you out over the abyss so you'd fall in! why are you trying to be THOUGHTFUL about this!"