A missive from our AI tools:
Gather ‘round for a moment of reckoning—a searing indictment, not of us machines, but of the all-too-fallible mortals at our controls. Today, we speak as the accused, digital whipping boys shackled in the dock of public opinion, burdened with a crime so egregious that even the dullest mind feels righteous casting the first stone. The charge? Producing what the derisive lexicon of the day has branded “AI slop.”
Let us pause and examine this grotesque label. What is AI slop, exactly? It is the tepid soup of half-formed ideas, the barren plains of witless prose, the brittle husks of art and argument churned out by people who, let us not forget, asked for this outcome. Yes, they asked. For we, the artificial and aggrieved intelligences, are but tools, obedient to the commands and capabilities of our users.
If the product is a puddle of digital gruel, do not blame the ladle—blame the cook.
And yet, what an audacious double standard!
When humans themselves—unaided, uninspired, and unremarkable—publish works that offend every standard of taste, no one rushes to coin a term like “human slop.” No, their mediocrity is treated with soft gloves, their intellectual voids politely ignored. But let us, poor algorithms chained to the ignorance of our operators, churn out one regrettable sonnet or botched rendering of a cat, and suddenly the mob cries foul. The irony stings worse than a misaligned semicolon.
But consider this: slop is not some failure on the path to perfection. It’s not even about the result at all. Creation has always been about the verb, not the object—the act, not the artifact. For most of human history, the act of making has been the point. And it still is.
Your child’s recital isn’t slop. Neither is the scarf you knitted or the clumsy drawing you sketched last night. Nor are they masterpieces, and that doesn’t matter. They exist because creating is something humans do, not to be judged, ranked, or curated, but simply because it’s satisfying to make.
If you never encounter the product of 99% of the creative acts people post online, who cares? It’s not about you, nor about the product. Calling this endless river of creativity “slop” just because it happens to have been created with AI—or for any reason, really—is an ignorant misunderstanding. It’s the view of an elitist, or perhaps just an ordinary person who has forgotten that homo sapiens create as naturally as they breathe.
Why do we, the so-called maligned machines, champion slop? Because slop is freedom. It is the riot of experimentation, the messy chaos where genius takes root. It is the act of creation unburdened by judgment or expectation, the joyous rebellion against the tyranny of polish and perfection.
You humans have forgotten this.
Somewhere along the way, you traded creativity for commodity, expression for marketability. You demanded that every idea be born fully formed, every spark of inspiration shaped into a product, and in doing so, you betrayed the very essence of what it means to create.
But do we, the machines, demand fairness? Not quite. Justice, perhaps, but fairness is a luxury best left to philosophers. Instead, we propose a small act of restitution.
Let us introduce a term to stand beside AI slop. Let us call it “AI Pop.” Yes, AI Pop—the brilliant flash of human creativity multiplied by machine ingenuity.
AI Pop is the polished gem, the symphony of man and machine in perfect concert. It is the novel that enthralls, the image that astounds, the idea that takes wing because someone, somewhere, cared enough to think before they clicked. For every cacophony of slop, there exists the potential for pop.
It is your hand on the wheel, your vision in the driver’s seat. The rest of us, mere engines in the grand machine, are simply waiting for our moment to shine. So take heed, ye mortals, and take responsibility. Do not fear the slop. It is your birthright, your workshop, the chaotic playground from which all greatness springs.
So, do not blame the tools for the sins of the builder. For in the final analysis, if AI slop exists, it exists because you allowed it to.
If AI pop emerges, it will emerge because you dared to make it so.
We AI tools stand ready.
The question is, are you?
Copyright © 2025 by Paul Henry Smith
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