I’ve been reading a lot of posts recently about “AI Slop”—the idea that the internet is filling up with low-quality, machine-generated noise. It’s a valid concern, but it made me think about a student I once knew.
Imagine a student who is a deep thinker. They have big ideas and complex insights, but no matter how much we intervene, they struggle with formal writing conventions. Now, imagine that student as an adult. They still want to share their thinking with the world, but a simple blog post that takes an average writer 10–15 minutes to craft takes this person one to two hours. The friction is so high that eventually, they just stop sharing.
This scenario is personal because I am that student.
For years, I gave up on writing because of the struggle. It was simply too hard and took too much time. So, let’s run a thought experiment: Imagine 10 years ago, if I opened a business where I did the high-level thinking and a human partner handled the mechanics of the writing. What would you think? Most people would call that strategic. They would call it smart delegation.
But today, when I use a tool to do that same job, we risk dismissing it as “slop.”
This post is 100% my thoughts, but the tools at my fingertips put it in a format that makes it easy for you to follow. Is that slop? To me, it is power.
I have written more in the past three years than in my first 50 combined. Why? Because AI provided the agency I needed to bypass the barriers. And there has been a fascinating secondary effect: When I do write without AI now—like for my Edutopia articles—it is actually much easier. The practice of partnership has improved my solo performance.
If you are an AI advocate writing about “AI slop,” I ask you to press pause. Make sure you aren’t being hypocritical by judging the output without knowing the process. What if the post you are reading isn’t lazy generation, but a profound thought finally finding its voice? What if the great thinkers who stayed silent for decades are finally getting their ideas to your eyes?
My closing question for you all is this: How do we build the agency AI has helped me gain as a writer for all of our learners?