AI Slop
Etymology
From "slop," long used for pig-feed and, by extension, worthless or carelessly made stuff, now paired with "AI." The term spread rapidly in 2023–2024 as generative tools made bulk content nearly free to produce. The old sense of slop as swill captures the disgust at cheap, undifferentiated output.
noun · /AY-eye slop/
The mass of low-effort, low-quality content churned out by generative AI and dumped online for cheap attention or ad revenue.
What it names
A new pollution of the information commons — plausible-looking but hollow text and images produced faster than anyone can vet — and gives a word for the queasy feeling of drowning in it.
Example
Half the search results were AI slop — confident, generic paragraphs that answered nothing.
Related idea
Enshittification describes platforms decaying to serve themselves; AI slop is one of the substances now clogging the platforms as they decay.