AI writing has gotten so good at sounding human. For the first couple years, as it kept getting better, we were in awe.
That changed. Nowadays, we spend all this mental energy on sniffing out if a response is 100% human, 100% AI, mostly AI-generated, etc. What a waste of our collective energies!
I see a fork in the road soon, once society at-large has accepted (and no longer cares!) that AI produces many things. When we no longer feel any need to mask that we used AI to produce a result.
There will be no need for slop one day because there will be no more value in the pretending. That’s the odd value of slop—the element of “getting away with it” is the perceived value—a certain number of words, a certain false professionalism, a style that fakes having gone through the motions.
Once we stop putting value on the pretending, it’ll be gone.
AI responses should feel like AI responses. Quick. Short. Factual. Direct. Just the information. That, at least for me, is what I want from this kind of intelligence. I want to get to the heart-of-the-matter without the etiquette. I don’t want the false bedside manner.
Human responses should feel like human responses. Slow. With a particular style. Nuanced. Empathetic.
I think AI slop writing is a novelty act. Just proof that it's getting really really good at doing a really really hard thing.
And soon, we can get what's authentically valuable out of both.