303 See Other
doi.org

cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/tech/p/1457193/ai-slop-hides-the-conversations-we-should-be-having

The term “AI slop” hides conversations we need to have. When we call something “AI slop,” we’re often doing more than complaining about one output. Optimists use the term to quarantine failures away from AI’s promise; critics use it to indict the whole technology. Slop-talk thus lets us feel like we’re discussing important social issues without actually doing it. I argue that we should have those discussions openly.

  • humanspiral@lemmy.caEnglish
    41·
    7 days ago

    Hard to understand author’s point, but it is supposedly this:

    When someone is sick, lonely, or frightened, do we want a real person in the room, or will a bot do?13 Do we want our children taught and shaped mostly by people, or are we content to hand that to machines? When a court weighs whom to believe, or an employer whom to hire, do we want a person behind the call, or can a machine sort it?14 Do we want the systems that increasingly run our lives steered by a few private companies, or held more widely accountable? And do we want a shared world we can make sense of together, or one so flooded with synthetic stuff that no one can tell what is real?15 None of these can be answered by asking whether AI produces quality or slop. They are about the communal lives we want, and when we reach for “AI slop,” we’re sloppily pushing each other on exactly these questions without ever confronting them out loud.

    When we complain about an example of AI slop, we’re implicitly opining on all of those questions against over reliance on AI. Author is complaining that there are more dangerous/annoying aspects of AI overtaking decisions rather than content production.

    It seems innapropriate/unfocused to bring up discussion of those topics, with zero opinion/argument by author, framed as a distraction from not stating an opinion on slop.