aware of the slop

Can we become

Aware of the slop?

Try to become aware of the slop.

The term slop is now being used, quite appropriately, to refer to the vast quantities of text and images, music and videos, being generated by artificial intelligence. This slop is everywhere on the internet, drowning out more desirable human created information, just by sheer volume.

Have you noticed, though, just how much human generated material could also be considered slop? I have long ago given up interacting in any way with social media, as long before AI started generating its nonsense, social media was full of human generated rubbish: inconsequential trivia, completely false statements, slop. And social media is not the only place that has been filled with slop. So much of our public discourse, from politicians to the gutter press, is also simply churning out slop.

However, before we point the finger too much at others, it is worth considering how much slop are we generating? Do we choose our words carefully, considerately? Or do they come spewing out of us, as artificially intelligent words come churning out of a large language model. And even if we do not speak them, looking at one's own thoughts – that rarely interrupted stream of consciousness appearing as words in the mind – it surely becomes clear that the vast majority of our own thoughts are no more than slop.

And so here, I'm suggesting we try to become aware of the slop that we are creating: in things I write, in things I say, but also in these thoughts appearing in the mind. If we catch ourselves thinking slop, can we just interrupt it? If you manage to do this, then the moment you notice slop in your mind, there will be a pause, a break in the thoughts. That pause might last a fraction of a second, or a few seconds; perhaps longer, if you are lucky.

And in this pause between the thoughts, for a few moments, we are living without slop. And it is in this space between the slop that we notice reality. It is in the space between thoughts that the artificial drops away. And we could call this silent time true intelligence. For it is here, in the silent space between the slop, that for some moments we touch truth. It is in this stillness that we become the truth. It is in this spaciousness that we are part of reality.