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Re:You can just say it: the best definition of AI slop by delichon on Friday May 29, 2026 @08:22PM (#48331049)
To a friend or colleague, yes. But for quotidian business transactions LLMs are such a shortcut. I pointed one to three Amazon orders that I wanted to return with reasons for each, and asked it to look up the details and generate warranty service request emails for each. A quick review copy paste send, boom done. A 15 minute task done in 5. Repeat and it adds up. But you need to know when not to take the shortcut.

On a good day it's a 240 volt hair clipper for grooming yaks.

Re:You can just say it: the best definition of AI slop by pavel_lishin on Friday May 29, 2026 @08:25PM (#48331076)
I think the difference there is that a warranty email isn't aimed at a person, but a company - which, I think cstross has pointed out, was humanity's first AI.
Re:You can just say it: the best definition of AI slop by majormajor on Saturday May 30, 2026 @12:20AM (#48332531)
Last time I returned anything to amazon it was a two-minute-or-less task that didn't involve anything like a warranty service request email?
Re:You can just say it: the best definition of AI slop by delichon on Saturday May 30, 2026 @08:16AM (#48335375)
I buy sous vide cookers that die in about 3 months (all brands I've found do when run 24x7). That's outside of the normal return window and requires a warranty claim to get a replacement. For that you go through the maker, not Amazon. This basically doubles the useful life of the purchase, but I'd rather find one that lasts.
Re:You can just say it: the best definition of AI slop by emodendroket on Saturday May 30, 2026 @02:00AM (#48333095)
I mean, yeah, I consider myself a decent writer, but I don't think that skill was best or more meaningfully expressed in writing Jira tickets so I'm pretty happy to outsource that.