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1. Embed this notice
   mhoye (mhoye@cosocial.ca)'s status on Friday, 31-Jul-2026 05:16:38 JST mhoye

   If a company with a "Generate this with AI" button also gives you a "Report AI Slop" button, you should know that your protest vote is being used to tune the models until the slop is invisible.

   • Rich Felker repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Matt Hall (401matthall@mastodon.xyz)'s status on Friday, 31-Jul-2026 05:16:37 JST Matt Hall

     in reply to

     @mhoye

     I used to feel slightly paranoid when chat/video services would ask, "How was the video/audio quality?"

     I'm now completely convinced this is used as a metric to throttle bandwidth on future calls when a sufficient number of participants register the call as "good" quality.

     The users would literally _tune_ the bandwidth over time to the lowest bearable quality.

     I don't even _feel_ crazy for thinking this anymore.

     Everything is awful.

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 31-Jul-2026 05:20:07 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • Marcus "MajorLinux" Summers

     @majorlinux @mhoye They're not making the slop invisible by hiding it from you. They're making it invisible by tuning the generation better to make it less distinguishable from actual legitimate writing.

   • Embed this notice
     Marcus "MajorLinux" Summers (majorlinux@toot.majorshouse.com)'s status on Friday, 31-Jul-2026 05:20:09 JST Marcus "MajorLinux" Summers

     in reply to

     @mhoye I’m good with that.

     It’s like cheaters in a video game. If I report enough of them, they only play against themselves.

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 31-Jul-2026 05:22:18 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • javier :vericol:

     @javier @mhoye Yes, it's even worse slop.

     Slop isn't slop because it has bad repetitive style.

     It's slop because it's wasting your attention/cognitive capability processing it as though it's meaningful information when in fact it's just information-shaped text lacking any information content.

     The difference is provenance, not the shape or even the words. The exact same sentence can be slop or non-slop with the only distinction being provenance.

   • Embed this notice
     javier :vericol: (javier@col.social)'s status on Friday, 31-Jul-2026 05:22:19 JST javier :vericol:

     in reply to

     @mhoye but if slop is invisible is it still slop?

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 03-Aug-2026 13:49:43 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • javier :vericol:
     • Drew

     @Drew @javier @mhoye Yes. A good portion of the model corpora was slop written by humans for SEO spam, REO spam, fake engagement, political astroturf, etc.

   • Embed this notice
     Drew (drew@gamerstavern.online)'s status on Monday, 03-Aug-2026 13:49:44 JST Drew

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker
     • javier :vericol:

     @dalias @javier @mhoye ooh, good one. Because, yes, people also create slop. Whether it's advertisement disguised as information, legalese designed to hide and obscure information, or propaganda made to twist the truth of information, its all slop too. Ai-slop just adds extra layers to it.