Our paper on removing AI slop got accepted to ICLR 2026, and it's under consideration for an IgNobel prize: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.15061 Our definition of slop (repetitive characteristic language from LLMs) is the original one as articulated by the LLM creative writing community circa 2022-2023. Folks trying to redefine it today to mean "lazy LLM outputs I don't like" should have chosen a different word.
I was disappointed that your paper devoted less than a sentence in the introduction to qualifying "slop" before spending many pages quantifying it. The definitions you're operating under are mentioned thus: > characteristic repetitive phraseology, termed “slop,” which degrades output quality and makes AI-generated text immediately recognizable. (abstract) > ... some patterns occur over 1000× more frequently in LLM te…
Slop Terrifies Me
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Re: Slop Terrifies Me
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fact that people see that basically the singularity is happening but can't imagine that humanoid robots get good rapidly is why most people here are bad futurists.
> the singularity is happening [Citation needed] No LLM is yet being used effectively to improve LLM output in exponential ways. Personally, I'm skeptical that such a thing is possible. LLMs aren't AGI, and aren't a path to AGI. The Singularity is the Rapture for techbros.
Instead, a subconscious process assembles the words to support my stream of consciousness. I think that LLMs are very similar, if not identical.
Stream of thought is accomplishing something superficially similar to consciousness, but without the ability to be innovative.
At any rate, until there’s an artificial human level stream of consciousness in the mix for each AI, I doubt we’ll see a group of AIs collaborating to produce a significantly improved new generation of AI hardware and software minus human involvement.
Once that does happen, the Singularity is at hand.
Re: Slop Terrifies Me
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, that’s why they are on the race to building the very advanced robots. To prevent the violence towards them.
Sort of. The thing building and being protected is capital, not humans. As Nick Land wrote: "Robotic security. [...] The armed mass as a model for the revolutionary citizenry declines into senselessness, replaced by drones. Asabiyyah ceases entirely to matter, however much it remains a focus for romantic attachment. Industrialization closes the loop, and protects itself." [0] The important part here is that "[i]ndust…
Re: Slop Terrifies Me
#134I think this is far too nuanced. I am terrified by what the civilization we have known will become. People living in less advanced economies will do OK, but the rest of us not so much. We stand on the brink of a world where some wealthy people will get more wealthy, but very many will struggle without work or prospects. A society where a large percent have no income is unsustainable in the short term, and ultimately…
It's no coincidence that populism is rising. That's the non-violent way out - electing leaders that are willing to change the dynamics a lot.
As we saw 100 years ago, violent authoritarians will gladly use technology to make themselves look like the populists choice all the while planning to neglect the very thing they promised when they were getting elected.
Re: Slop Terrifies Me
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is exactly the motivation. The problem with being a billionaire is you still have to associate with poor people. But imagine a world where your wealth completely insulates you from the resentful poor.
How does a billionaire have to associate with poor people? They can live in a complete bubble: house in the hills, driven by a chauffeur, private jets, private islands for holidays etc...?
Re: Slop Terrifies Me
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
They already do and always have. They never stopped hiring butlers (who are pretty well paid BTW), chefs, chauffeurs, maids, gardeners, nannies..... The terminology may have changed a bit, but they still employ people to do stuff for them One big difference is while professional class affluent people will hire cleaners or gardeners or nannies for a certain number or hours they cannot (at least in rich countries) hire…
A lot of it is probably more part-time but, yes, people who are some definition of rich spend more money on people to do more work for them (cleaning, landscaping, accounting, etc.) Doesn't mean they don't do any of those things--and outsourcing some can be more effort than it's worth--but they don't necessarily cut their own lawn or do car repairs.
Re: Slop Terrifies Me
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sort of. The thing building and being protected is capital, not humans. As Nick Land wrote: "Robotic security. [...] The armed mass as a model for the revolutionary citizenry declines into senselessness, replaced by drones. Asabiyyah ceases entirely to matter, however much it remains a focus for romantic attachment. Industrialization closes the loop, and protects itself." [0] The important part here is that "[i]ndust…
This reads like absolute gibberish to me. The capitalistic system does not function without the motivations of the people running it. Ultimately every decision and action is in service of some human, and his or his group's interest.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
Re: Slop Terrifies Me
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fact that people see that basically the singularity is happening but can't imagine that humanoid robots get good rapidly is why most people here are bad futurists.
You’re delusional if you think singularity is happening.
A hundred million years ago, every day on Earth was much like every other day and you could count on that. As you sweep forwards in time you cross things like language, cooperation, villages, control of fire, and the before/after effects are distinctly different. The nearer you get to the present, the more of those changes happen and the closer they happen, like ripples on a pond getting closer to the splash point, or like the whispers of gravity turning into a pull and then a crunch. "Singularity" as an area closer to the splash point where models from outside can't make good predictions keeps happening - a million years ago, who would have predicted nations and empires and currency stamped with a human face? Fifty thousand years ago, who could have predicted skyscrapers with human-made train tunnels underground beneath them, or even washing bleached white bedsheets made from cotton grown overseas? Ten thousand years ago, who could have predicted container shipping through the human-made Panama canal? A thousand years ago who could have predicted Bitcoin? Five hundred years ago, who could have predicted electric motors? Three hundred years ago who could have predicted satellite weather mapping of the entire planet or trans-Atlantic undersea dark fibre bundles? Two hundred years ago, who could have predicted genetic engineering? A hundred and fifty years ago, who could have predicted MRI scanners? A hundred years ago, who could have predicted a DoorDash rider following GPS from a satellite using a map downloaded over a cellular data link to a wirelessly charging smartphone the size of a large matchbox bringing a pizza to your house coordinated by an internet-wide app?
In 2000 with Blackberry and Palm Treo and HP Journada and PalmPilot and Windows Phone and TomTom navigation, who was expecting YouTube, Google Maps with satellite photos, Google StreetView, Twitch, Discord, Vine, TikTok, Electron, Amazon Kindle with worldwide free internet book delivery, or the dominance of Python or the ubiquity of bluetooth headphones?
Fifty years ago is 1975, batteries were heavy and weak, cameras were film based, bulbs were incandescent, betamax and VHS and semiconductors were barely a thing - who was predicting micro-electromechanical timing devices, computer controlled LED Christmas lights playing tunes in greetings cards, DJI camera drones affordable to the population, Network Time Protocol synchronising the planet, the normality of video calling from every laptop or smartphone, or online shopping with encrypted credit card transactions hollowing out the highstreets and town centers?
The strange attractor at the end of history might be a long way away, but it's pulling us towards it nonetheless and its ripples go back millions of years in time. It's not like there's (all of history) and then at one point (the singularity where things get weird). Things have been getting weird for thousands and thousands of years in ways that the people before that wouldn't or couldn't have predicted.
Re: Slop Terrifies Me
#139Seems an unlikely problem. It'll get better, which may cause it's own problems.
Re: Slop Terrifies Me
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is exactly the motivation. The problem with being a billionaire is you still have to associate with poor people. But imagine a world where your wealth completely insulates you from the resentful poor.
That notion is based on the misconception that for there to be very rich people, other people would need to be poor — that would resent you. Economic science has pretty much proven that when the average income in a society is higher and fewer are poor, the economy moves more money and the rich benefit more as well.
It comes down to if the people in power think they are playing a zero sum game and are driven by greed. We see plenty of dictatorships that are very resource wealthy and yet their society suffers in abject poverty. Said leaders have zero care about making their peoples life better and will gladly kill them wholesale if they become problematic.