AI Slop, AI Assistance, and the Voices We Almost Never Heard
If you've spent any time on LinkedIn lately, you've probably seen people complaining about "AI slop."
A lot of that criticism is deserved. The internet is filling up with content that feels mass-produced: generic posts, recycled ideas, articles that technically say something but don't really add anything. We've all seen it.
What I've also noticed, though, is that the definition of AI slop seems to be expanding.
These days, some people are willing to dismiss a piece of writing simply because they suspect AI was involved. Maybe it has a certain phrase. Maybe it's unusually polished. Maybe the structure feels familiar. Once someone spots what they think is an AI fingerprint, the content itself almost stops mattering.
I think that's a mistake.
We're starting to treat AI involvement and low quality as if they're the same thing, and they aren't.
It's content generated with little thought and even less contribution from the person publishing it. The ideas are recycled, the insights are shallow, and the goal is usually visibility rather than usefulness.
The issue isn't that AI was used.
The issue is that nobody brought anything meaningful to the table.
A person can generate an article in seconds, skim it, hit publish, and contribute nothing to the conversation. That's worth criticizing, and we should continue to criticize it.
But that's a quality problem, not an AI problem.
A piece of writing can involve AI and still be insightful, original, well-researched, or genuinely useful. The fact that someone used AI to help shape the final draft tells us almost nothing about the quality of the underlying ideas.
The question that matters isn't:
Was AI used?
It's:
Did the author have something worth saying?
Humans wrote mediocre content long before AI existed. We're just seeing a new method of production, not a new category of bad thinking.
That's a valid conversation, but I think there's another side that doesn't get enough attention.
For a long time, writing ability acted as a gatekeeper. Plenty of people had valuable expertise, interesting experiences, or strong ideas, but they struggled to express them in writing.
Think about non-native English speakers. People with dyslexia. Engineers. Scientists. Subject-matter experts who know their field inside and out but aren't particularly comfortable staring at a blank page.
We often judged the value of their ideas through the quality of their prose.
That's not always fair.
A brilliant engineer can have awkward writing. A mediocre thinker can have excellent writing.
Those two skills have never been the same thing.
Before AI, a lot of good ideas simply never made it into public conversations because the people who had them didn't feel capable of communicating them effectively.
Now some of those barriers are lower.
What it does is help me communicate ideas that already exist in my head.
A few years ago, I might spend half an hour rewriting an introduction because I couldn't get the wording right. I'd know what I wanted to say, but not how to say it. Sometimes I'd get frustrated and abandon the whole thing.
AI helps reduce that friction.
The opinions are still mine. The experiences are still mine. The arguments are still mine.
The difference is that I can get them onto the page more easily. AI didn't create a voice that wasn't there before. It made that voice easier to hear. And I suspect I'm far from the only person who feels that way.
Good AI tools can help someone organize a messy draft, identify weaknesses in an argument, consider counterarguments, or adapt a piece of writing for a specific audience. In many situations, the role feels less like a ghostwriter and more like an editor or writing coach.
The interesting thing is that professional writers have always benefited from editors. Now those kinds of capabilities are becoming available to far more people.
Writing is often part of thinking.
Anyone who writes regularly knows that ideas which seem clear in your head have a tendency to fall apart when you try to put them into words. The writing process forces you to confront weak assumptions, gaps in logic, and contradictions you'd otherwise miss.
That's valuable.
If people start outsourcing that process entirely, they risk becoming less engaged with their own ideas.
I think that's a legitimate concern.
But to me, that's an argument for using AI carefully, not avoiding it altogether.
There's a world of difference between asking AI to generate your opinions and using AI to challenge, refine, and communicate opinions you've already developed.
The real divide isn't between people who use AI and people who don't.
It's between people who stay intellectually engaged and people who don't.
But we should also be careful about treating evidence of AI assistance as evidence of low value.
If AI helps a non-native English speaker share an important insight, that's a net positive.
If it helps an engineer communicate a hard-earned lesson from years of experience, that's a net positive.
If it helps someone transform a frustrated rant into a thoughtful proposal, that's a net positive.
In many cases, the alternative wasn't a better-written article.
The alternative was no article at all.
That may be one of the most overlooked benefits of AI writing tools.
They aren't just helping people write more clearly.
They're helping people who might otherwise go unheard participate in the conversation.
A lot of that criticism is deserved. The internet is filling up with content that feels mass-produced: generic posts, recycled ideas, articles that technically say something but don't really add anything. We've all seen it.
What I've also noticed, though, is that the definition of AI slop seems to be expanding.
These days, some people are willing to dismiss a piece of writing simply because they suspect AI was involved. Maybe it has a certain phrase. Maybe it's unusually polished. Maybe the structure feels familiar. Once someone spots what they think is an AI fingerprint, the content itself almost stops mattering.
I think that's a mistake.
We're starting to treat AI involvement and low quality as if they're the same thing, and they aren't.
What Real AI Slop Looks Like
Real AI slop absolutely exists.
The issue isn't that AI was used.
The issue is that nobody brought anything meaningful to the table.
A person can generate an article in seconds, skim it, hit publish, and contribute nothing to the conversation. That's worth criticizing, and we should continue to criticize it.
But that's a quality problem, not an AI problem.
AI Assistance Doesn't Tell You Much
What bothers me more is the growing assumption that AI-assisted automatically means low-value.A piece of writing can involve AI and still be insightful, original, well-researched, or genuinely useful. The fact that someone used AI to help shape the final draft tells us almost nothing about the quality of the underlying ideas.
The question that matters isn't:
Was AI used?
It's:
Did the author have something worth saying?
Humans wrote mediocre content long before AI existed. We're just seeing a new method of production, not a new category of bad thinking.
The Story We Might Be Missing
A lot of discussion about AI writing focuses on what skilled writers stand to lose.That's a valid conversation, but I think there's another side that doesn't get enough attention.
For a long time, writing ability acted as a gatekeeper. Plenty of people had valuable expertise, interesting experiences, or strong ideas, but they struggled to express them in writing.
Think about non-native English speakers. People with dyslexia. Engineers. Scientists. Subject-matter experts who know their field inside and out but aren't particularly comfortable staring at a blank page.
We often judged the value of their ideas through the quality of their prose.
That's not always fair.
A brilliant engineer can have awkward writing. A mediocre thinker can have excellent writing.
Those two skills have never been the same thing.
Before AI, a lot of good ideas simply never made it into public conversations because the people who had them didn't feel capable of communicating them effectively.
Now some of those barriers are lower.
My Own Experience
Speaking personally, AI has been transformative for me, but probably not in the way critics imagine.
It doesn't give me ideas. It doesn't replace expertise. It doesn't do my thinking for me.What it does is help me communicate ideas that already exist in my head.
A few years ago, I might spend half an hour rewriting an introduction because I couldn't get the wording right. I'd know what I wanted to say, but not how to say it. Sometimes I'd get frustrated and abandon the whole thing.
AI helps reduce that friction.
The opinions are still mine. The experiences are still mine. The arguments are still mine.
The difference is that I can get them onto the page more easily. AI didn't create a voice that wasn't there before. It made that voice easier to hear. And I suspect I'm far from the only person who feels that way.
It's About More Than Grammar
People sometimes talk about AI as if it's just an advanced spell-checker. That misses most of the value.Good AI tools can help someone organize a messy draft, identify weaknesses in an argument, consider counterarguments, or adapt a piece of writing for a specific audience. In many situations, the role feels less like a ghostwriter and more like an editor or writing coach.
The interesting thing is that professional writers have always benefited from editors. Now those kinds of capabilities are becoming available to far more people.
The Criticism I Take Seriously
There is one concern about AI that I think deserves genuine attention.Writing is often part of thinking.
Anyone who writes regularly knows that ideas which seem clear in your head have a tendency to fall apart when you try to put them into words. The writing process forces you to confront weak assumptions, gaps in logic, and contradictions you'd otherwise miss.
That's valuable.
If people start outsourcing that process entirely, they risk becoming less engaged with their own ideas.
I think that's a legitimate concern.
But to me, that's an argument for using AI carefully, not avoiding it altogether.
There's a world of difference between asking AI to generate your opinions and using AI to challenge, refine, and communicate opinions you've already developed.
The real divide isn't between people who use AI and people who don't.
It's between people who stay intellectually engaged and people who don't.
Be Careful What You Call Slop
We should absolutely keep criticizing low-effort AI content.But we should also be careful about treating evidence of AI assistance as evidence of low value.
If AI helps a non-native English speaker share an important insight, that's a net positive.
If it helps an engineer communicate a hard-earned lesson from years of experience, that's a net positive.
If it helps someone transform a frustrated rant into a thoughtful proposal, that's a net positive.
In many cases, the alternative wasn't a better-written article.
The alternative was no article at all.
That may be one of the most overlooked benefits of AI writing tools.
They aren't just helping people write more clearly.
They're helping people who might otherwise go unheard participate in the conversation.
