Slop is a consequence of tool use, not a design feature of the tool.

To me “slop” is a description that reflects the supply and demand imbalance of all generative AI output: there’s a practically infinite supply of AI generated stuff (to put it kindly), but very little demand.

For example, someone could generate a book with an LLM faster than any person could actually read it (assuming anyone actually wanted to read it in the first place…), and that represents a fundamental logical problem with regard to the value of things that AI produces.

There are vast amounts of ethical data to train against.

Of course there are. Like I said in the comment above: works in the public domain, works licensed cc-0, original works, works licensed for training, and so on. Ethical AI is possible.

But is that what your local AI is trained on?

If so, cool and good for you, you’re using the tool ethically.

But that’s not what I’m seeing from >99.99% of AI users out there generating Ghibli-core slop for an audience of 0. Stealing all of Kazuo Oga’s background art is not curing cancer or doing anything good for society, it’s just blatant exploitation of one man’s life’s work and legacy so frauds and billionaires can make a quick buck off of people who can’t tell the difference between AI slop and human art.

I could go on but you don’t really care, you care selectively. Or you wouldn’t be using the computer (the tool in front of your hands) undeniably built upon exploitation and compromise.

This comparison isn’t exactly working in your favor…

Even assuming some of my PC parts were made in a sweatshop in Asia, how many people were exploited to make it? How badly were they exploited? Were they payed something for their time and effort?

Odds are that the model you’re using was trained off a mountain of work from of untold numbers of people, all over the world, who didn’t see a red cent for their skills, time or effort. Not only is their work being exploited for other people’s profit, nobody even bothered to seek consent to do it in the first place.

This is exploitation of labor on an industrial scale. AI turns the whole world into a sweatshop for every person in the creative working class. Forget talking about the “means of production”, creative types today aren’t even able to control the fruits of their labor anymore.

It is a tool. It exists. You can’t stuff the genie back in the box.

Like every technology, it can and should be regulated to prevent abuse, exploitation and other forms of negative impact. Every new technology introduces new problems, challenges and implications. But unlike what happened with oil and nuclear technology in the 19th and 20th centuries, we shouldn’t wait 50-100 years to consider them.

The big problem I have with most AI stans is that you are all so infatuated with the subjective utility of the “tool” that you’re unwilling to even have a good faith conversation about the objective impact of this technology on the world and society.