AI slop and the destruction of knowledge
beSpacific 2025-08-22
Via LLRX – AI slop and the destruction of knowledge – Iris van Rooij is Professor of Computational Cognitive Science at the School of Artificial Intelligence in the Faculty of Social Sciences at Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Her research focuses on the computational foundations of cognitive science. Recently she was looking for information on what cognitive scientists mean when they speak of ‘domain-general’ cognition. To her surprise and dismay, she hit upon a ScienceDirect page that ‘defined’ the concept using, as she terms it, AI Slop. She shares the thread of her email communications with the Elsevier Helpdesk that detail her concerns about AI generated definitions, and links within articles, and the fact that authors cannot say ‘no’ to their work being used for AI training and AI generated texts. In addition, she includes references and recommended readings about AI’s impact on education and the future of academia.