Above (and throughout the post): Some pictures of vegetables we grew in our garden, taken with my telephone. Why? Yes.

It's been 5 years since I left the corporate world and set out on my own. What I remember about that time was the quiet few weeks after I left my job. I was left to my own devices. I was building. I had ideas. I was excited, but scared. I did what anybody in 2021, scared about how they were going to make money, would do: I looked on YouTube for business ideas. I had my own, but a few extra revenue streams would be nice.

No shortage of money-making schemes on YouTube

Here's what I found: One creator opened each video walking in slow-motion with cars exploding behind him. Then he told the audience all about how to hustle on the internet with blogging and email marketing. Others showed me how I could make money with Canva to make everything from planners, to guitar tablature books, to short informational guides, then self-publishing on Amazon.

Another group of creators was all about blogging, talking about setting up blogs en masse around niche topics and creating a bunch of low cost (and pretty low value) content to rank in search engines and start making money through affiliate marketing and ads. Then there were the Etsy people making digital art, drop shipping, and other random things.

Other get-rich-quickers would tell you how to make hundreds of cheaply produced Shorts/Reels/TikToks about some particular topic in minutes.

For every video where they told you what you should be doing to make money, they also hawked online courses to bilk you for money...I mean... teach how to be successful like them.

The day the world met ChatGPT

Then came November 30, 2022 (the day the world met ChatGPT).

All those things that people were doing online before suddenly became easier, faster, and cheaper. The barrier to entry dropped until we got to the "slop" problem that people complain about today — now attributing it to AI.

Fair. But why?

Founded concerns about AI

The frontier labs certainly have blame with their poorly thought-out rhetoric and visions of grandeur about what their tech will do to/for the world economy, for better or worse. Some of it might be real. All of it sounds scary. They trained their models on the work of writers, artists, musicians, videographers, mostly without permission or compensation. Then there are the environmental considerations (some founded, some less). There's no shortage of logical reasons for concern. I have nuanced thoughts about all of it, for another day.

AI is getting great (and I love it)

Generative artificial intelligence is a power tool. It's getting quite good, particularly reasoning models and agentic AI. Anybody who tells you otherwise is just plain wrong. I use it daily and I constantly find new ways it can help me. I'm astounded by it! If used smartly and responsibly I think it's pretty great.

It's our fault

It's not the AI's fault that people have a propensity to exploit any tech that they can to make a quick buck, or get attention.

Slop is a human problem. There was slop before AI. All AI just made it easier and faster.

Make better stuff.