New term: AI slop
2024-05-08 · Publisher : Simon Willison · Domain : Artificial Intelligence
Low-quality AI-generated content produced in bulk, published unreviewed and pushed on readers who did not ask for it. Slop is to AI what spam is to email.
What changes
- A short word finally names the flood of generated content on social networks, search engines and online stores.
- Publishing unreviewed generated text becomes a matter of professional ethics.
- The debate now separates using AI from mass production without oversight.
- Merriam-Webster names it its 2025 Word of the Year.
### Definition **Slop** refers to low-quality AI-generated content produced in volume and shared without review: absurd images, hollow articles, fake travel guides, mass-produced books or videos. ### Origin The word had circulated since 2022 as slang on 4chan, Hacker News and YouTube, in reaction to the first image generators. On May 8, 2024, Simon Willison brought it to a wide audience with his post "Slop is the new name for unwanted AI-generated content", building on a message posted the day before by @deepfates: "the way that "spam" became the term for unwanted emails, "slop" is going in the dictionary as the term for unwanted AI generated content". ### What the term covers - Willison cites an AI-generated travel guide published by Microsoft that listed the Ottawa Food Bank among the places not to miss. - For him, not all generated content is slop: it becomes slop when it is "mindlessly generated and thrust upon someone who didn't ask for it". - He draws a personal rule from it: "don't publish slop". ### Criticism and limits The word is sometimes used to dismiss any AI-assisted content wholesale, whereas the line is drawn by care and review, not by the tool. ### Key takeaway Merriam-Webster named "slop" its 2025 Word of the Year (announced December 15, 2025). The term now works as a benchmark: using AI is fine; publishing without reviewing is not.
Links
Tags : Vocabulaire, Qualité, Contenus, Éthique