AI Slop

The word traces back to 1700s references to "soft mud" and 1800s "food waste." Now it describes the digital runoff of the creator economy.

The absurdity is already here.

AI-generated images of "Shrimp Jesus" flooded Facebook in 2024. Thousands of accounts posted photorealistic images of crustacean messiahs. Millions engaged, commented, shared.

Nobody stopped to ask why a shrimp was being crucified. They didn't need to. The algorithm rewarded the click, not the thought.

That's slop. Content designed to trigger engagement without requiring meaning.

The old rule is dead.

You've heard "ideas are worthless, execution is everything."

That was true when execution was hard. When writing took hours. When design required specialists. When shipping meant something.

Now execution is cheap. AI writes drafts in seconds. AI edits video while you sleep. AI generates images on command.

Everyone can execute. Few can think.

The bottleneck flipped.

The question is no longer "can you ship?"

The question is "do you have something worth shipping?"

So what actually counts as slop?

AI slop is not "content made with AI."

AI slop is content with no point of view.

That distinction is everything.

You can use AI for every word and still create something worth reading. You can write everything by hand and produce absolute garbage.

The tool doesn't determine the value. The thinking does.

I used AI to write parts of this column.

Was it slop?

You tell me.