Sloptologist
Lexicon ex Machina
sloptologist /ˌslɒp.təˈlɒ.dʒɪst/ n.
noun
A person who identifies, catalogs, or critiques AI-generated content characterized by generic phrasing, excessive hedging, and substantive emptiness. “The sloptologist immediately spotted the five consecutive paragraphs beginning with ‘It’s important to note that...’”
One who has developed refined detection capabilities for machine-generated text through prolonged exposure. “Years of code review had turned her into an unwitting sloptologist.”
(informal) A connoisseur of bad AI output, often maintaining collections of particularly egregious examples. “The sloptologist’s Twitter feed was a museum of hallucinated citations.”
Derivatives
sloptology n. The study or practice of identifying AI slop. “His sloptology skills were honed on thousands of LinkedIn posts.”
sloptological adj. Of or relating to the analysis of AI-generated content. “A sloptological examination revealed seventeen uses of ‘delve’ in a single document.”
sloptolyze v. To subject content to sloptological analysis. “She sloptolyzed the press release and found it 94% filler.”
Diagnostic Markers (per practitioner consensus)
Overuse of: “delve,” “straightforward,” “I cannot and will not,” “It’s worth noting,” “Let me be direct,” bullet points where prose suffices, synthetic enthusiasm, unsolicited ethical caveats.
Usage Note Sloptologists are not inherently anti-AI; many are heavy users who have simply developed antibodies. The discipline is descriptive rather than prescriptive.
Origin Mid-2020s, from slop (low-quality AI output) + -ologist (one who studies). Emerged organically across multiple online communities as LLM adoption reached saturation.