Slop is a choice

2025 is the year of slop. Meta has made an infinite slop machine. So has OpenAI. If this isn’t bad enough, our jobs have been invaded by workslop.

The implication behind all of this is that slop is the fault of the LLMs or their creators.

But for a moment, I want to ask you to consider… is this true?

I don’t dispute that we’re seeing a lot more AI generated slop than we were 2 years ago… but I do wonder what it’s displacing. When I see this AI video of a woman jumping through a glass bridge, I wonder what human content it is replacing in those users feeds. What is the quality of that content? Would it qualify as slop too?

Here is what I believe to be true.

Making something excellent takes care and focus. Sometimes that care and focus is the years you spent prior to the morning you make something excellent and the final thing hops out of you almost fully formed. Sometimes that care and focus is the years you spend refining something until it is excellent.

Most creative work, including mine, isn’t particularly high quality. If you want to be uncharitable, you could call this slop.¹ Internet platforms have made it easier for people to create and display their work. LLMs have made it easier to create. This means that we see a lot more slop.

There will be some Sora posts that will be funny, wonderful, even beautiful. There will be many that are slop.

At the end of it all, slop is a choice. My choice and your choice. “The devil’s oldest strategy is, of course, promising godlike creation without godlike effort.”

2025-10-09