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Microsoft CEO Really Wants You to Stop Calling Generative AI 'Slop'

LectureMaster

LectureMaster

Or is it just one of Adam's balls in my throat?
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Microsoft CEO Really Wants You to Stop Calling Generative AI 'Slop'

That won't help sales
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Apparently, "slop" was Merriam-Webster's word of the year – as determined by the organisation's "human editors", it specified in a blog post prior to Christmas.

While we feel the word has lost a lot of meaning due to its undeniable overuse throughout 2025, said fleshy beings defined it as "digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence". Seems relatively accurate to us.

Satya Nadella, whose Microsoft company has poured tens of billions of dollars into the technology, doesn't like the insult, though.

He wrote in an SN Scratchpad post ahead of the New Year:

"We need to get beyond the arguments of slop vs sophistication and develop a new equilibrium in terms of our 'theory of the mind' that accounts for humans being equipped with these new cognitive amplifier tools as we relate to each other. This is the product design question we need to debate and answer."
Click to expand...

We've read Nadella's post through several times now, and we're honestly struggling to extract much meaning from the corpobabble it's undeniably stuffed full of. We can't help but wonder whether he employed Copilot to help author it.

But we think he sums it all up with this sentence: "We now have a clearer sense of where the tech is headed, but also the harder and more important question of how to shape its impact on the world."

In other words, the tech is here but no one's really figured out how to best use it yet. Or, in Microsoft's case, how to best sell it.

Like it or loathe it, AI is going to dominate discussion in the games industry this year.

We've already seen studios like Larian come out and admit they're exploring the possibilities of the technology, and they won't be alone. Meanwhile, teams like Sandfall Interactive have said they'll never use it again, after attracting some criticism for including some generated art assets in undisputed Game of the Year winner Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

We can't see any immediate resolution to the issues: with generative AI largely trained upon the individual endeavour of humans, questions of ethics will continue to be raised.

And moreover, the technology's impact on the environment – and, increasingly, economy – will remain big talking points.

For Nadella and Microsoft, who's seemingly bet everything on generative AI, this year may yet prove a make or break moment.
 
What's wild is that MS Copilot is possibly the B tier slop in the competition. They somehow managed to make ChatGPT models a lot worse.

GitHub and Foundry are a separate topic.
 
Copilot is an AI and may make mistakes. Your conversations are personalized. Opt out.
Today

what is generative AI slop

Here's the short, clear version — and then we can dig deeper if you want.

🧠 What "generative AI slop" means

"Generative AI slop" (often just AI slop) is a pejorative term for low‑quality, mass‑produced content created with generative AI tools. It's used when the output feels:

  • low‑effort
  • inaccurate or nonsensical
  • cheaply made at scale
  • lacking creativity or meaning
  • flooding social media, search results, or marketplaces
Think of it as the spam of the AI era — endless, mediocre content created because it's easy and profitable to churn out.

Sources describe it as:

  • "digital content made with generative AI… perceived to show a lack of effort, quality or deeper meaning"
  • "low-quality videos, images, music, and articles… taking over social media and streaming platforms"
  • "machine-made junk content… cheap, endless and hard to escape"

🧩 Why people call it "slop"

The word "slop" implies unappetizing leftovers — something shoveled out quickly with no care. The term caught on because:

  • AI tools can produce huge volumes of content instantly
  • Platforms reward quantity over quality
  • It's often hard to tell what's real
  • It can drown out human-made work
Merriam‑Webster even named "slop" the 2025 Word of the Year.

📌 Examples of AI slop

  • Weird, uncanny AI images (e.g., "Shrimp Jesus") that go viral
  • Fake news clips or disaster photos that look real at a glance
  • Spammy YouTube videos made entirely by AI to farm ad revenue
  • Bland AI-written articles stuffed with keywords

💬 Why it matters

AI slop raises concerns about:

  • misinformation
  • erosion of trust in online content
  • overwhelming human creators
  • degrading search and social feeds
If you want, I can also explain why Microsoft's CEO is pushing back on the term, since you have that article open — or we can explore how to spot AI slop, why it spreads, or whether the criticism is fair.

Sigh!
 
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I Dont Think So No Way GIF by FTX_Official
 
"We need to get beyond the arguments of slop vs sophistication and develop a new equilibrium in terms of our 'theory of the mind' that accounts for humans being equipped with these new cognitive amplifier tools as we relate to each other. This is the product design question we need to debate and answer."

Corporate word slop.

100% Nuttella used copilot to write that as well.
 
"We need to get beyond the arguments of slop vs sophistication and develop a new equilibrium in terms of our 'theory of the mind' that accounts for humans being equipped with these new cognitive amplifier tools as we relate to each other. This is the product design question we need to debate and answer."
Click to expand...

That reads like AI slop lmao.

Also, this statement is not very inline with 'theory of the mind'.
 
Corporations trying to force people to like what they're selling is both hilarious and dystopian. Seems everyone is getting ready for that bubble to pop.
 
Why did I have 2 versions of Copilot on my brand new pc? Copilot and 365 Copilot.
Slop and Slop 365.

I did my best to make both version not auto start but I'm sure they are hidden in the background taking up CPU time somewhere.
 
Let him get upset, dumb ass, lol. Absolutely no one has had anything positive to say about Copilot.

With what AI and its data centers are doing to the computer component market, I hate it with every bit of my being.
 
As long is not slop is ok? Fine.

Trash, turd, poop, putrit creation, slump, brown doodoo, Phil Spencer, etc.
 
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The irony about all of this is, as far as I (and my admittedly limited view of the AI landscape) can tell, Microsoft is like dead fucking last in user satisfaction when it comes to AI.

Do they think bludgeoning us with images and tales of success to hide their failure is actually going to accomplish anything?

GIF by Giphy QA
 
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Microsoft needs corporations to keep paying the $20 a head per month or whatever and having the userbase associate this with horrible worthless garbage is not the best way to do that. I think in 2026 companies will start taking a hard look at how their employees are using it and many will decide that the millions of dollars they are spending on it is better spent on hiring, you know, humans.

AI either gets me the same info I could have gotten from a GOogle search 20 years ago (before they ruined Google Search) or total slop.
 
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IDKFA said:
"We need to get beyond the arguments of slop vs sophistication and develop a new equilibrium in terms of our 'theory of the mind' that accounts for humans being equipped with these new cognitive amplifier tools as we relate to each other. This is the product design question we need to debate and answer."

Corporate word slop.

100% Nuttella used copilot to write that as well.
Click to expand...
Cognitive
Amplifier
Tools
hgV5iAP0FVIcbn7t.jpg
 
Well, this is like CGI or other stuff, when it's not used well it's lazy. AI is much worse because any lazy person can come up with a few prompts to make it generate assets (text, movie, audio, images, etc.) ... and there is always a tell.

So yeah, SLOP.
 
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