"Repulsive and denigrating. At least that's what John McWhorter, an Opinion writer and a linguistics professor at Columbia, pictures when he thinks of the word, slop. Here, he argues that the inundation of A.I. slop has demoted artificial intelligence from a powerful technological mystery to an everyday (and even dangerous) nuisance. Something happened to me: After Russia invaded Ukraine almost four years ago, I did a podcast."
"I think it would be remiss of me not to devote an episode of Lexicon Valley' to the Ukrainian language. But much to my surprise, all of a sudden, I noticed that getting around was that same podcast, but eaten up and then regurgitated by A.I. into one of the most peculiar articles I've ever read. This is my introduction to A.I. slop being applied to me."
A.I. slop has demoted artificial intelligence from a powerful technological mystery to an everyday and sometimes dangerous nuisance. Instances of A.I. reprocessing original human work produce distorted, regurgitated outputs that can feel repulsive and denigrating. The word slop, historically related to things sloshed around like cow dung, conveys a liquid, repulsive quality that fits these outputs. Examples include an original podcast about Ukrainian language being consumed and republished by A.I. into peculiar articles. The American Dialect Society named slop the 2025 word of the year, reflecting cultural awareness of A.I.'s downsides.
Read at www.nytimes.com
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