Thinking
The selective amnesia on LinkedIn dumbfounds me. AI slop sucks? Sure. But apparently in a galaxy far, far away (before ChatGPT) nobody ever wrote garbage — we all lived in a world full of thoughtful prose and deep insightful thinking. Right? (Ohh no, I used em-dashes.)
Because if the real concern were quality, these same AI slop crusaders would've been posting rants about the ocean of mediocre blog posts, Twitter posts, decks, and white papers that existed for years before anyone typed a prompt. Nobody was out there crusading against "human slop." It only became a crisis when it became obvious how little original thinking was happening in the first place.
Bad writers didn't suddenly appear in 2026. They just got faster. AI didn't break the equation, the user was always the variable (Ohh no, I used an if not X, then Y statement).
Sharp thinking in, sharp thinking out. Garbage in, garbage out. That has always been true with typewriters, with word processors, with Reddit, with Canva templates, and guess what? It's still true today with the prompt.
The only thing AI changed is the speed at which you expose the level of thinking. So, next time we all choose to partake in the daily slop-think AI-slop rant of the week, ask yourself: is this MY original thinking, or am I just following the crowd?
This was all composed, written, and produced with AI. If you think the humor, sarcasm, wit, and snarky Star Wars reference is human, it's just an illusion. Or is it? 😉
Coming next week: opening the black box.
Slop Wars was the warm-up.
Next week I'm opening the black box. What actually happens when you type a prompt? Does the model think for you, or does it just expose the thinking you brought? The "smart" argument-lists that treat a one-paragraph reply as critical thinking don't answer that. I will.
Stay tuned.
First posted on LinkedIn · Sept 2026