The introduction of the collection of humorous essays on slop, media, and technology I'm working on. Italian Version
The goal of this work No objective, really, except perhaps what could, not without a touch of disgust, be called a divertissement.1 Then again, I wouldn't be so sure about that. Better to adopt a rational narrative tone and let a generative artificial intelligence later twist it into something else. Oh nooooo, yet another futile postmodern exercise. Wait, do I need to pick a theme?? Ah, right, yes. This is meant to be a collection of observations, re-flections, and notes emerging from the muck, the synthetic stew. In short, the slop; not only the AI-generated kind but also the human echo in response to it.
And so we reach the first pedestrian and pedagogical moment. By AI slop2, we mean that whole slew of images, art, textsâmotivational ones!âmedia, etc., etc., all marked by being slapdash, recycled, low-quality, and, of course, algorithmically parroted. However, it's not primarily my intention to plumb the depths or pontificate [ewwww] about the value of artificial intelligence content, but rather to observe the reactions, mimicry, and human adaptations to the proliferation and use of such content. To put it plainly, nothing more than some healthy speculation.
If you're part of the Wrathionalist3 camp, feel free to stop here.
1. A possible đonomy
âCreating a systematics of the slop is a good idea.â
That's what I was advised during a course of creative writing, an afternoon labour-shop4 at the modest price of âŹ1000.
In compliance with this precious suggestion, one can identify the first and obvious macro-distinction: content in which human participation is minimal and entirely human-produced media. The already mentioned AI slop belongs to the first set: the bipedal contribution is limited to the initial prompt, to the input written following the principle of âgarbage in, garbage outâ.5 The output, the result, can only be sloppish because that is UNO! of the human instructorâs intentions. However, it is reductive to claim that the abysmal quality derives solely from that: after all, we have affirmedâI and my innumerable personalitiesâthat the anthropic component is minimal. The banality and absurdity of the final product, therefore, also derive from the âstate of the artâ of generative artificial intelligence models. The refinement of these models (a task, alas, for us mortals) will reduce, and is already reducing, those formal and stylistic imperfections that render the result even more grotesque.6
A postscript, before I forget: I feel the urge to reveal that, right in the moment and while I was writing âunoâ, I had only one card left in my hand in the eponymous game. Personal delight and glee aside, the difference in intentions establishes a logically viable subcategory for both the muddles exclusive to sapiens-sapiens and for those shared with the confidant, secretary, yes wo/man, intern, therapist, deep learner consultant. Thus, in the specific case of AI concoctions spreading across Facebook, the slopper's goal is essentially economic: monetising interactions.7 But, before analysing the underlying variants, let us take a step back and try again to define the other macro-group (human slop, editor's note).
First of all, the production of mishmashes is inherent to human nature.8 It existed, obviously, even before the age of artificial intelligence. Precisely due to chronological criteria, one can distinguish between the wide-ranging sloppy elaboration of the past, untouched by algorithm, and the more recent kind, directly or indirectly influenced by it. It is not advisable to reconstruct every precedent; included in the catalogue of pre-digital human slop are invented traditions, myths of a lost golden age, the linear and progressive view of history, propaganda and psychological operations, heraldic mottos, maxims of classical antiquity and sophisms, etiquette manuals, neologisms of the nascent nation-state, and so on. As will be clear even to the most acute, upright and obtuse reader, these experiences span millennia of humanity (filtered through the author's biases and Eurocentrism).
On the other hand, current practices shaped by the confrontation with the cumbersome and logorrheic not-yet-android are of greater interest, as they reveal the flesh-and-blood being that chases the trends of the presentâhow it adapts, how it competes, and to what extent it reacts to standardisation. Never has the gap between promoter-sender and user-recipient become so evident as in today's human-made mush. A gap-difference that is informational, emotional, and intentional.
Well, well, well, but concrete examples of contemporary human slop? Here, one could opt for a conceptual separation between analogue jargon that has survived, been updated, or even been reinforced in the current era (e.g., bureaucratese), and the ânewâ phenomena (forms), linguistic and otherwise (e.g., open LinkedIn and take a deep breath). Naturally, grey areas abound; it is not uncommon for apparent novelties to be nothing more than rebranding, nostalgia operations, or cycles that perhaps only a major upheaval will be able to break.9 Moreover, especially on platforms like LinkedIn, interactionsâassuming they are not AI slop to begin withâare driven by a new age, self-help, self-referential and motivational dialectic. Few are âinnovativeâ in terms of content: they echo, in the era of connection, the self-presentation seen on Facebook post-2008, and, going back in time, the hippie healing journey, the birth of corporate mantras, and the delirious and mythical typification of the tech monad DIY ĂŒbermensch genius.
There are, finally, other muddy situations in which, generally10, AIs are not employed (i.e., freebooting).11 The looting of creative, fully human content for its republishing in the manner of engaging spam is, in truth, carried out directly by barren individuals. Meme accounts on X (Twitter) apply this stratagem to the point of exhaustion, wringing out the âcontagiousnessâ of medial objects, even those several years old.
To conclude these initial remarks, I propose a test for your attention span: do you remember that I said I wouldn't pontificate [aaaaaa] on the âgoodnessâ of content in itself? But why did I also write that I wouldn't write in detail about AI slop if, then, in fact, I did write about it and am writing about it? Don't ask me.
Despite this, I believe I remember some reasons. These are connected to a personal disinterest toward the debate for Cassandras on the future direction of artificial intelligence (whether it takes an optimistic, pessimistic, Luddite turn, etc.). Moreover, concealing one's laziness and inadequacy behind indifference is pleasant.
Regarding the specific aspect of content quality (the Silicon partner-in-crime side), I've already stated what's necessary. To what has been said on refinement, one may reasonably add that this very practice could, in time, render the âslop phaseâ a relic: a historicisable artefact subject to the nostalgia effect, as has happened with vintage Windows interfaces, or to a post-ironic reinterpretation, such as that undergone by fashion and pop symbols of the early 2000s.12
On the human side, well, I've yet to discover mine.
Now it is time to gather my thoughts and desperately search for bibliographic sources not to cite.