For better or worse, this type of writing (and coding, and ...) is here to stay.
We can dismiss it on the basis of "slop", but that would be throwing out the baby with the bath water. The reality is that pretty much everyone will rely on these tools, and it would be more beneficial for the audience to discern good content vs bad content, over whether it was machine-generated or not.
In fact, playing devil's advocate, it may have some benefits as well. For many people the content might not be in their first language, so the tools help with improving grammar, fixing typos, etc. They're the same assistive writing tools we've had for decades, but far, far, better. This makes the content much clearer and easier to read. The style of the content can always be changed in seconds, so if a certain cadence bothers the author, that can be easily changed. And, personally, I enjoy the privacy aspect. It's long been possible to identify the author of written text simply by their language, style, etc. These tools can make this more difficult, preserving the anonimity of the author. Or they can mimic the author's style, if instructed to do so. These are all powerful features.
To be clear: I can't stand "AI slop" either. I don't like that it replaces the humanity and personality of the author with something that tries to mimic it. But we should learn to accept it and see beyond it.
So the main question is: is the content of this article worthless? Or is it worth reading despite of it being machine-generated?
Hell, if it bothers you that much, ask your favorite LLM to summarize it for you, or rewrite it in any style you like. :)
We can dismiss it on the basis of "slop", but that would be throwing out the baby with the bath water. The reality is that pretty much everyone will rely on these tools, and it would be more beneficial for the audience to discern good content vs bad content, over whether it was machine-generated or not.
In fact, playing devil's advocate, it may have some benefits as well. For many people the content might not be in their first language, so the tools help with improving grammar, fixing typos, etc. They're the same assistive writing tools we've had for decades, but far, far, better. This makes the content much clearer and easier to read. The style of the content can always be changed in seconds, so if a certain cadence bothers the author, that can be easily changed. And, personally, I enjoy the privacy aspect. It's long been possible to identify the author of written text simply by their language, style, etc. These tools can make this more difficult, preserving the anonimity of the author. Or they can mimic the author's style, if instructed to do so. These are all powerful features.
To be clear: I can't stand "AI slop" either. I don't like that it replaces the humanity and personality of the author with something that tries to mimic it. But we should learn to accept it and see beyond it.
So the main question is: is the content of this article worthless? Or is it worth reading despite of it being machine-generated?
Hell, if it bothers you that much, ask your favorite LLM to summarize it for you, or rewrite it in any style you like. :)