Pundit ClaimsAI claims by Gary Marcus and Ed Zitron, with the evidence

Ed Zitron Where's Your Ed At Published

The Slop Society

We recorded 8 claims from this post. 4 were checked against evidence. 4 can’t be checked. 4 more are held. Read the post at its source.

Claims from this post (8)

In the order they appear in the post. Each quotation is the speaker’s words in this post. A label such as “Supported” or “Can’t be checked” is the claim’s current assessment; its page has the evidence and the reasons.

  1. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “Suggesting one is "taking detailed notes on bloggers" is an attempt to intimidate people that are seriously evaluating the fact that OpenAI burns $5 billion a year and has no path to profitability.”

    What we tested: OpenAI has no path to profitability.

  2. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “I am 100% sure that these chatbots will return, because it's fairly obvious that Meta intends to fill your feeds with content either entirely generated or summarized by generative AI, be it with fake profiles or content itself.”

    What we tested: Meta's deleted AI chatbot profiles will return, because Meta intends to fill feeds with AI-generated or AI-summarized content.

  3. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “AI-generated slop already dominates the platform, and as discussed earlier, the quality of the platform has fallen into utter disrepair, mostly because Meta's only concern is keeping you on the platform to show you ads or content it’s been paid to show you, even if the reason you're seeing it is because you can't find the stuff you actually want to find.”

    What we tested: AI-generated slop already dominates Facebook.

  4. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “I believe, however, that Zuckerberg is attempting to move it further — to publicly say "we're going to fill your feeds with AI slop" and "we're firing 5% of our workers because they suck" and "we're going to have AI profiles instead of real people on the site you visit to see real people's stuff"”

    What we tested: Zitron believes Zuckerberg is attempting to move the Overton window further by publicly signalling, in Zitron's paraphrase, that Meta will fill feeds with AI slop, is firing 5% of workers because they suck, and will have AI profiles instead of real people.

  5. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “Tech has already taken liberties with the digital experience and I believe the Slop Era will be one where experiences will begin to subtly and overtly rot, with companies proudly boasting that they're making "adjustments to user engagement that will provide better business-forward outcomes," which will be code for "make them worse so that we make more money."”

    What we tested: In the coming 'Slop Era', tech companies will deliberately degrade user experiences to make more money.

  6. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “Meta will push as much AI slop as it wants, both created by its generative models and their users, and massively ramp up content that riles up users with little regard for the consequences.”

    What we tested: Meta will push as much AI slop as it wants on Facebook and Instagram, from its own generative models and from users.

  7. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “The Information's Jon Victor and Aaron Holmes add that it's yet to be seen what Microsoft does with the corporate customers using Microsoft's 365 productivity suite — adding Copilot costs $30-per-user-per-month — but my hypothesis is it will do exactly the same thing that Google did to its business customers.”

    What we tested: Zitron hypothesizes that Microsoft will do exactly the same thing to its corporate Microsoft 365 customers that Google did to its business customers, namely raising prices along with adding AI features (Copilot) they don't want.

  8. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “I should also be clear that the reason they're doing this is that they're desperate.”

    What we tested: Google and Microsoft are forcing generative AI features and price increases on customers because they are desperate for growth.

Held from this post (4)

These records did not pass every check, so nothing about them is published. Held is not a finding.