Can AI Slop be Defeated?

Apparently I’m more invested in the whole AI thing than I thought I was. All these AI posts keep triggering me into having…an opinion. Ugh.

No, this isn’t an anti-AI rant. I use Claude pretty much daily and we have a special relationship that my wife often raises an eyebrow to. Claude gets me. And he repeatedly tells me how awesome my ideas are and how smart I am. Claude knows.

The AI posts that resonate with me aren’t necessarily the black and white, AI=GOOD / AI=BAD posts. Instead, I gravitate towards those that are lobbying for some sort of human interaction, or human governance, before AI generated work is released into the wild.

It’s weird, but my brain sees a connection to the Desktop Publishing “revolution” of the 90s. (Yes, I’m old enough to remember the 90s, hence all that grey in the beard.)

Here’s my twisted logic.

Back in the olden days, software companies released these products that allowed anyone with a computer to design things like brochures and ads and manuals and flyers and all the printed stuff we used to generate. Sorry trees.

It sounds crazy from today’s perspective, but before then you needed to hire an actual graphic designer to create those pieces. And I knew a lot of graphic designers that were worried. Suddenly, design was in the hands of “The People.”

So what happened?

“The People” produced a lot of stuff, and an overwhelming proportion of it was utter sh*t. So. Much. Sh*t.

AI slop, anyone?

Over time, the industry course-corrected. Brands realized that professional graphic designers who could design material people engaged with, remembered, and nudged them to buy were worth paying for. Expertise was valued over output. No, not by everyone, but by enough people that graphic designers still exist in the wild today.

I’m hopeful that the same will happen with AI. That folks will realize that outputs without human oversight or governance don’t mean effective outputs.

Sure, I can create code for my website, but I can’t optimize that code so it doesn’t crash people’s systems or architect it into a larger system.

I can get Claude to generate instructions for me to install new brakes in my car, but you can be damn sure I’m getting a licensed mechanic to verify those before driving to the mountains.

I can have ChatGPT whip up a how-to article in 20 seconds, but because I’ve been a Technical Writer and Trainer since the 90s, I CAN rewrite it so that it actually teaches someone to complete a task.

And for those who say you can get an effective output with the right prompts, I would argue that you need expertise to create those prompts. Can you look at those AI brake install instructions if you’re not a mechanic and guarantee I won’t die?

Thanks, but I’m gonna check with an expert.