Emotion canceling Information science presents signal and noise as a fundamental dichotomy, presuming that these can ultimately be separated cleanly. This leads to a view that language in its multivalence should ideally be reduced to unambiguous code that is pure signal and no noise, and that technology should aim for that goal of abolishing the need for interpretation in favor of pure, direct transmission that operates like a reflex, so that talking to someone would be like pushing their buttons and pulling their strings. The degree to which communication might convey a range of feelings is the degree to which it fails; it should be purified into a purely “neutral” tone of voice, like a Tao Lin novel.
There has been a push recently to christen unwanted generative content as “slop”: This New York Times piece by Benjamin Hoffman, for example, defines “slop” as “a broad term that has developed some traction in reference to shoddy or unwanted A.I. content in social media, art, books and, increasingly, in search results,” typified by the now infamous glue pizza. The term feels more or less synonymous with “spam,” but seems to suggest there is something worse about using “AI” to pollute communications, as if there were now something artisanal and dignified about human-crafted spam.
Frank Pasquale
Steve Randy Waldman
