Bullshit machines, knitting slop, and the automation of perception
Three angles on AI 'slop' from three very different vantage points. Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West's Modern-day Oracles or Bullshit Machines? is a course on living with systems that generate misinformation at scale — how they work, when they mislead, and how to keep your footing. Knitwear designer Kate Davies brings Harry Frankfurt's definition of bullshit to AI-generated knitting content, arguing that synthetic podcasts and videos parasitise a real craft community, swapping emotional validation for actual knowledge. And Hadi Afif's Slop Is That Deep treats slop not as a detection problem but as the 'automation of perception' — engagement-optimised filler that pre-conditions how we read reality on enshittified platforms. A scientist, an artisan and a theorist describing the same rot.
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