No AI Slop: A Manifesto

Re:No AI Slop: A Manifesto by riantogo on Friday November 13, 2026 @03:54PM (#50489516)

Seems like a good thought for pre-agentic era where ai assisted existing human workflows. We are fast approaching the end of that era. In the agentic future the past human-centric workflows (reviewing, validating, approving etc.) will be replaced with agent-to-agent workflows. There will be resistance from humans who would want to be in the comfort of familiar human-centric workflows. The survivors will see where we are heading and adapt.

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Re:No AI Slop: A Manifesto by lern_too_spel on Friday November 13, 2026 @04:19PM (#50489859)

Correct. This document is only relevant for a particular time period in the development of AI and will not "be relevant for years to come."

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Re:No AI Slop: A Manifesto by camillomiller on Friday November 13, 2026 @04:20PM (#50489870)

LOL stop it already with the agentic crap. Besides the already automation-ready software use cases, agents are simply the wrong tool for the job, unless you bend and distort the definition of such job. Y’all fully invested in this agentic bullshit that you sound delusional and talk in self-evident truths that nobody outside of your niche SWE bubble would ever share.

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Re:No AI Slop: A Manifesto by riantogo on Friday November 13, 2026 @06:47PM (#50491815)

I can't argue against you having an alternate opinion. But "humans better than ai for taste, judgement, reviews etc." is the self-serving assumption not grounded in any empirical evidence.

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Re:No AI Slop: A Manifesto by dimator on Friday November 13, 2026 @04:30PM (#50490040)

14. We own the intent, taste, and consequences of what we ship

It sounds to me like you're arguing against this point in particular.

More power to you. I'd like never to work at a place that sanctions slop-validated-slop.

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Re:No AI Slop: A Manifesto by riantogo on Friday November 13, 2026 @06:43PM (#50491783)

This assumes that "humans owning the intent, taste, and consequences" is necessarily a good thing, and agents will necessarily do a worse job. This is not grounded in anything but vibes.

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Re:No AI Slop: A Manifesto by bigstrat2003 on Friday November 13, 2026 @08:55PM (#50492789)

That is grounded in cold, hard reality. LLMs suck at programming and have zero taste for good design.

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Re:No AI Slop: A Manifesto by criley2 on Saturday November 14, 2026 @06:31AM (#50496166)

Agents are nothing more than magnifiers for the operator. They 10x the user.

If you find your agent sucks at programming and has zero taste for good design, then that's arguably a 10x of the operator.

I'm quite pleased with the quality of programming and design that I'm able to achieve with the processes I do with agents.

I've certainly noticed that when I watch a junior use AI they've produced nothing but the most intolerable slop man has ever seen. And I've seen principles and architects produce one shots that are such shining examples of quality engineering that they remain nothing more than goals to me.

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Re:No AI Slop: A Manifesto by criley2 on Saturday November 14, 2026 @06:29AM (#50496152)

Throughout my career I've met many engineers who drew a line in the sand and said I'll never work at a business. Who does a practice that accelerates the business and lowers the quality of the engineering.

Most of them exited this industry before their career was over.

Good luck to you

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