> Slop is when we put less effort into producing something than we ask the consumer to spend understanding it.
This feels directionally right, but if you define slop this way then you put a cap on AI productivity. For example, I heard an interview with Terry Tao talking about how the work of mathematicians is now to understand the proofs generated by AI. He's, by definition, describing these groundbreaking proofs as slop (by the above definition).
I think the issue lies partly in not understanding your product yourself, and then handing it off to someone else who has to make sense of it.
The comparison doesn’t work for the music industry, at least. Many hit songs are written and produced on a whim, while people analyze it for years.
Only human can publish the slop, which mean if Tao release something without reviewing, it will be called slop.
In that context, it'd only be slop if Terry published those proofs and asked someone else to do that work.
Well maybe Tao is wrong and we should instead focus on making LLMs explain their ideas better. It really seems eminently achievable and would be better all round.
I think the problem with those Maths proofs was they were massively rushed and OpenAI just couldn't be bothered to do it properly or actually check them. They were more interested in the PR than in helping advance Mathematics.
> put a cap on AI productivity
Oh no, the horror