Merriam-Webster’s phrase of the 12 months delivers a dismissive verdict on junk AI content material
Like most instruments, generative AI fashions might be misused. And when the misuse will get unhealthy sufficient {that a} main dictionary notices, you recognize it has develop into a cultural phenomenon.
On Sunday, Merriam-Webster introduced that “slop” is its 2025 Phrase of the Yr, reflecting how the time period has develop into shorthand for the flood of low-quality AI-generated content material that has unfold throughout social media, search outcomes, and the online at massive. The dictionary defines slop as “digital content material of low high quality that’s produced normally in amount by way of synthetic intelligence.”
“It’s such an illustrative phrase,” Merriam-Webster President Greg Barlow instructed The Related Press. “It’s a part of a transformative expertise, AI, and it’s one thing that individuals have discovered fascinating, annoying, and slightly bit ridiculous.”
To pick out its Phrase of the Yr, Merriam-Webster’s editors assessment knowledge on which phrases rose in search quantity and utilization, then attain consensus on which time period finest captures the 12 months. Barlow instructed the AP that the spike in searches for “slop” displays rising consciousness amongst customers that they’re encountering pretend or shoddy content material on-line.
Dictionaries have been monitoring AI’s impression on language for the previous few years, with Cambridge having chosen “hallucinate” as its 2023 phrase of the 12 months because of the tendency of AI fashions to generate plausible-but-false data (longtime Ars readers can be blissful to listen to there’s one other phrase for that within the dictionary as effectively).
The development extends to on-line tradition basically, which is ripe with new coinages. This 12 months, Oxford College Press selected “rage bait,” referring to content material designed to impress anger for engagement. Cambridge Dictionary chosen “parasocial,” describing one-sided relationships between followers and celebrities or influencers.
The distinction between the child and the bathwater
Because the AP factors out, the phrase “slop” initially entered English within the 1700s to imply delicate mud. By the 1800s, it had advanced to explain meals waste fed to pigs, and finally got here to imply garbage or merchandise of little worth. The brand new AI-related definition builds on that historical past of describing one thing undesirable and unsightly.
