slop or pop

For writing, I found out pretty early on that AI was most useful upstream and downstream of the main thing.

Upstream is braindumping into a chat and filtering out core ideas from noise, maybe creating an outline for a piece. Downstream is taking a draft and pressure testing it against the machine-as-critic, finding out what’s confusing, boring,... See more

You also need to know how to do something before you know what to outsource to other people or tools. The best human-AI collaboration requires humans who could do the work themselves but choose strategic assistance at little expense to their core craft. When we outsource before developing judgment, we become dependent without ever becoming... See more

A work successfully “optimizing for mass consumption” will always provoke human response. AI shrimp Jesus and The Starry Night both emotionally resonated with millions of people. And yet Van Gogh would not go viral on TikTok, while shrimp Jesus would not be displayed in the Museum of Modern Art. This is because the world of high art retains a level... See more

Where doomscrolling made us passive consumers, doomprompting makes us passive conversationalists and creators. The shift from consumption to participation makes the illusion far more convincing, and the addiction far more sophisticated. New technology begets new human behaviors, without exception.

Slop is form without content . A pig’s fodder is simply meant to be food , not a type of food that does something . Instagram slop, likewise, is simply meant to go viral. It is molded in the image of the medium, recreating an idealized “successful message” rather than being a message itself.