I'll take my AI-generated slop fresh, please.
Musings + AI Generated Art, by Rahul Parundekar. Published on 4th April, 2025.
Had a fascinating chat with Titus Capilnean today about AI-generated content. Here’s the uncomfortable truth: AI slop isn’t the biggest problem in content creation - it’s outdated human slop! 🤔
The Quality Spectrum
🔍 We were chatting about the quality spectrum of content in our AI-saturated world. Titus pointed out the IRL conversations he’s been having on his travels about AI are still stuck on whatever was perhaps SotA almost a year ago. I, on the other hand, only have the attention span of whatever’s gripping San Francisco tech conversations.
The Uncomfortable Truth
📈 We realized that outdated human-generated content might actually be the lowest quality material circulating today, even worse than mediocre AI outputs. Our conversational AI systems are still playing catch-up to the state-of-the-art, but they’re improving at a pace that makes stale human content look increasingly obsolete.
💡 This realization challenges the common narrative that “AI-generated slop” is the biggest threat to content quality. The reality is more nuanced - the real problem might be our massive archives of outdated human-written material that no longer reflect current understanding or capabilities.
Balancing Perspectives
⚖️ This isn’t to say AI-generated content doesn’t have serious problems - it absolutely does. Hallucinations, lack of nuance, and inability to truly understand context remain significant challenges. But perhaps we need to be equally critical of outdated human content that continues to influence decisions and understanding.
Moving Forward
🚀 The solution isn’t choosing between flawed AI content or outdated human content - it’s developing better systems for knowledge management, content verification, and continuous updates regardless of the source. The best approach combines human expertise with AI assistance, each compensating for the other’s weaknesses.
What Do You Think?
How are you avoiding generating slop combining AI assistance with human expertise?