I've never read something that I agreed so much in principle but disagreed somewhat in practice. I think the root cause of slop is not AI, as youve identified. There has been slop before AI too, in the form of tiktokification of every social media (trust me, they weren't exactly the symposium even before tiktok). So the real justification for slop has always been ... something else. In my opinion, it's the idea of shareholders above everything. Which you mention too.
But critiquing that idea threatens the foundations on which America stands. And I hold this nigh conspiracy theory that China released tiktok and is not pumping silicon valley fulls of its youngsters who work incredibly hard to produce more...slop (I consider AI-powered todo apps slop too -- if it ain't hard to build...), to take advantage of the American belief that price = value and the shareholder trumps all, even the customer.
Meanwhile, China itself rallies its best to work on the hard problems -- healthcare, manufacturing, robotics, the world of atoms not bits.
How could you not dwell on that idea of shareholder superiority and trace it to its logical conclusion of hype-fueled markets?
I think slop is somewhat a result of lower trust societies. More transactional environments (be it shareholder value or something else) typically lead to gamification and hence slop IMO.
China enforces trust through oversight.
A better example might be Japan. Very very high trust and basically zero slop.
Agreed. My point is that "Shareholder value" being the number one priority for public markets will naturally lead to a "Low trust society". Lee Kuan Yew warned about it and worried about it for modeling Singapore after the US. China has avoided that at all costs. Japan does not let its businessmen dictate its policies. None of that can be said about the US where duty to the shareholders exceeds duty to the customer ... or the country.
But at the same time, this idea of shareholder value is precisely why American markets are so vibrant.
Excellent essay! Nice observation that AI has dramatically changed the build to ship ratio. If nothing, we must all internalize the fact that we will probably need to “waste” a lot of work that we do in order to arrive at the final version that is worthy of shipping.
I've never read something that I agreed so much in principle but disagreed somewhat in practice. I think the root cause of slop is not AI, as youve identified. There has been slop before AI too, in the form of tiktokification of every social media (trust me, they weren't exactly the symposium even before tiktok). So the real justification for slop has always been ... something else. In my opinion, it's the idea of shareholders above everything. Which you mention too.
But critiquing that idea threatens the foundations on which America stands. And I hold this nigh conspiracy theory that China released tiktok and is not pumping silicon valley fulls of its youngsters who work incredibly hard to produce more...slop (I consider AI-powered todo apps slop too -- if it ain't hard to build...), to take advantage of the American belief that price = value and the shareholder trumps all, even the customer.
Meanwhile, China itself rallies its best to work on the hard problems -- healthcare, manufacturing, robotics, the world of atoms not bits.
How could you not dwell on that idea of shareholder superiority and trace it to its logical conclusion of hype-fueled markets?
I think slop is somewhat a result of lower trust societies. More transactional environments (be it shareholder value or something else) typically lead to gamification and hence slop IMO.
China enforces trust through oversight.
A better example might be Japan. Very very high trust and basically zero slop.
Agreed. My point is that "Shareholder value" being the number one priority for public markets will naturally lead to a "Low trust society". Lee Kuan Yew warned about it and worried about it for modeling Singapore after the US. China has avoided that at all costs. Japan does not let its businessmen dictate its policies. None of that can be said about the US where duty to the shareholders exceeds duty to the customer ... or the country.
But at the same time, this idea of shareholder value is precisely why American markets are so vibrant.
Really refreshing to read this
Excellent essay! Nice observation that AI has dramatically changed the build to ship ratio. If nothing, we must all internalize the fact that we will probably need to “waste” a lot of work that we do in order to arrive at the final version that is worthy of shipping.
Thanks for the kind words! Yes, spot on, it's something I'm still trying to internalize too :)
If not waste... at least keep "sanding" it until it's more polished before shipping, even if I'm impatient to ship!
is now pumping*