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A new term, ‘slop’, has emerged to describe dubious A.I.-generated material

nytimes.com

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Re: A new term, ‘slop’, has emerged to describe dubious A.I.-generated material

#31

Post by duxup »

wdutch wrote: post #26
duxup wrote: post #14

Slop seems like a good term for unwanted AI generated content. But I wonder how much this is AI and how much we've sort of curated a slop pattern even before AI: - Video game tips web pages with massive chunks of text / ads before you get to the inevitable answer of "hit A when X happens". - The horrendous mess that Quora became with technically correct in some ways but also misleading answers to historical content.…

I think you're right. Since LLMs went mainstream, I've seen a lot of my colleagues' presentations and thought "was this written by ChatGPT?" but I've come to wonder if it's just given me the frame of mind to identify low-effort slop that lacks any original insight but uses all the right sorts of words and phrases, regardless of if it was authored by a human or not.

I've had similar false positive experiences where I swore some content had to be some form of LLM generated content, until I discovered the source was just poorly done or even just text from some older writing that "sounded" wonky but was more of a product of its time (like a 1940s newsreel).

Re: A new term, ‘slop’, has emerged to describe dubious A.I.-generated material

#32

Post by paulddraper »

skydhash wrote: post #24
fullshark wrote: post #20

I see no alternative if people are unwilling to actually pay for content. It's just going to be individualized slop feeds on every advertising based media app until they get tired of that (zero sign of that coming). Maybe the algorithms will be so good, and enough creative people will use these tools to generate truly exciting content that they wouldn't have been able to otherwise but it just looks totally dire to me…

People wants to pay for content, but publishers are either not working on content worth paying for or don’t want you to purchase, they want you to rent instead.

The overwhelming majority do not want to pay for online publications.

They are willing to view ads (proving they value the material) but as a rule are unwilling to pay any cash.

Re: A new term, ‘slop’, has emerged to describe dubious A.I.-generated material

#33

Post by ThrowawayTestr »

skydhash wrote: post #24
fullshark wrote: post #20

I see no alternative if people are unwilling to actually pay for content. It's just going to be individualized slop feeds on every advertising based media app until they get tired of that (zero sign of that coming). Maybe the algorithms will be so good, and enough creative people will use these tools to generate truly exciting content that they wouldn't have been able to otherwise but it just looks totally dire to me…

People wants to pay for content, but publishers are either not working on content worth paying for or don’t want you to purchase, they want you to rent instead.

Decades of internet use has shown me that people absolutely do not want to pay for content. The average person will choose free+ads over paying every time.

Re: A new term, ‘slop’, has emerged to describe dubious A.I.-generated material

#34

Post by henriquecm8 »

duxup wrote: post #14

Slop seems like a good term for unwanted AI generated content. But I wonder how much this is AI and how much we've sort of curated a slop pattern even before AI: - Video game tips web pages with massive chunks of text / ads before you get to the inevitable answer of "hit A when X happens". - The horrendous mess that Quora became with technically correct in some ways but also misleading answers to historical content.…

I can see the use to describe AI spam, but I am starting to seeing people using it to describe anything they don't like, basically a replacement for "mid" with was highly used the last couple of years. I noticed that when some people learn a new "trendy" word, they want to use it in every possible opportunity until it loses meaning.

Re: A new term, ‘slop’, has emerged to describe dubious A.I.-generated material

#35

Post by fullshark »

barfbagginus wrote: post #29
fullshark wrote: post #20

I see no alternative if people are unwilling to actually pay for content. It's just going to be individualized slop feeds on every advertising based media app until they get tired of that (zero sign of that coming). Maybe the algorithms will be so good, and enough creative people will use these tools to generate truly exciting content that they wouldn't have been able to otherwise but it just looks totally dire to me…

False. False. False. 1. People could forcibly seize and redistribute content already made in years 1980-2020. Even that would be better than slop. 2. People could read only those - like scientists or open source and public domain authors - either funded by the state or otherwise willing to publish their works for free at high quality without the monetization slop text. The content exists, but monetized slop hides it.…

So the other alternative is piracy and only consuming public domain information?

Re: A new term, ‘slop’, has emerged to describe dubious A.I.-generated material

#36

Post by willvarfar »

fullshark wrote: post #20

I see no alternative if people are unwilling to actually pay for content. It's just going to be individualized slop feeds on every advertising based media app until they get tired of that (zero sign of that coming). Maybe the algorithms will be so good, and enough creative people will use these tools to generate truly exciting content that they wouldn't have been able to otherwise but it just looks totally dire to me…

Companies will serve slop to paying subscribers too.

Re: A new term, ‘slop’, has emerged to describe dubious A.I.-generated material

#37

Post by fluffet »

Love the term.

People should call it for what it is. Tried to find some answers on Google earlier in the day, and the first result pages were 100% generated slop. Funnily enough, any AI summary of the slop would be slop squared.

It's everywhere, and I hate it. What ways do people have to combat it out of their day?

Re: A new term, ‘slop’, has emerged to describe dubious A.I.-generated material

#38

Post by Zambyte »

fullshark wrote: post #35
barfbagginus wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False. False. False. 1. People could forcibly seize and redistribute content already made in years 1980-2020. Even that would be better than slop. 2. People could read only those - like scientists or open source and public domain authors - either funded by the state or otherwise willing to publish their works for free at high quality without the monetization slop text. The content exists, but monetized slop hides it.…

So the other alternative is piracy and only consuming public domain information?

Maybe we should stop demonizing unauthorized sharing? People like to pretend nobody would make art in the absence of copyright, but it's easy to point them to millenia of contrary evidence.

Re: A new term, ‘slop’, has emerged to describe dubious A.I.-generated material

#39

Post by cjbgkagh »

wdutch wrote: post #26
duxup wrote: post #14

Slop seems like a good term for unwanted AI generated content. But I wonder how much this is AI and how much we've sort of curated a slop pattern even before AI: - Video game tips web pages with massive chunks of text / ads before you get to the inevitable answer of "hit A when X happens". - The horrendous mess that Quora became with technically correct in some ways but also misleading answers to historical content.…

I think you're right. Since LLMs went mainstream, I've seen a lot of my colleagues' presentations and thought "was this written by ChatGPT?" but I've come to wonder if it's just given me the frame of mind to identify low-effort slop that lacks any original insight but uses all the right sorts of words and phrases, regardless of if it was authored by a human or not.

My hope is that equivocating waffle will look so much like ChatGPT that humans will have to write clearly and precisely to differentiate ourselves and we can put this horrible era of essay writing style behind us.

Though I’m starting to think that AI might improve faster than us so there might only be a diminishing margin of opportunity left to do this.

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