He infinite scrollsocial networks and AI have made our attention be a rare commodity too valuable to happily distribute it in contents without substance. Millennials got used to ask for quick summaries with the term “TL;DR” (Too Long; Didn’t Read). The summary: a lot of text.
Generation Z, transgressive and cornered by AIyou have found another way to filter what is and is not worth your attention. If a content looks generated by AIis sent with only five characters: “AI;DR” (AI, didn’t read). This tag is used to mark content that is perceived as “slop”. AI-generated filler that wastes time without providing real value.
Behind this label there is satiety, but also a form of defending something as basic as wanting to read people who have taken the trouble to write a text.
From “too long” to “too artificial”
Tony “Sid” Sundharam, co-founder of the app Sink Ithe defined in his blog the essence of the new term: “For me, writing is the most direct window into how someone thinks, perceives and understands the world.” For a growing portion of young people, delegating that window of humanity in an AI it breaks the pact of honesty between whoever writes and whoever reads.
In the background, a much more powerful idea is latent: “Why should I bother reading something that someone else is not interested in writing?”
“TL;DR” was born, as internet memes do, as an inside joke on forums and networks. A way to admit that the effort-reward balance had been exceeded. The text it was too long to dedicate time to it. Over time it became a kind of generational nod: there was a lot of information, little time and limited patience for infinite blocks of text.
“AI;DR” reuses that same structure, but changes the paradigm. Now the problem is no longer the length (or at least it is not the main reason), now the problem is the origin of the content.
The idea is not that the text is long, but that seems generated by an AIwithout its own voice, critical sense or experience behind it. When someone labels a text like this, they are not asking for a summary. You’re saying it’s not even worth starting to read.
A few days ago, my colleague Javier Lacort, counted that AI is conditioning us to look for the “summarize” button in all the contents to save time, thus depriving us of the luxury of enjoying a reading in its entirety, with its nuances and its readings between the lines. AI may be more efficient saving reading time, but taking a toll on the essence of the message.
Fatigue in the face of AI “slop”
In the new paradigm of rapid content consumption, “AI;DR” becomes a kind of advertisement between humans. A quick way to point out that something smells automated and that it might be better to pass by. When someone answers “AI;DR” to a textis doing more than just complaining about AI.
As Sid explained on his blog, the fact that someone has had an idea, fought over it in front of a blank page, and spent time putting it in order are “rudimentary work tests from a pre-AI era,” small stress tests that they legitimize the author before the reader.
Faced with that, the famous “dead internet theory“. Machines writing for machines.
The same generation that lives surrounded by automation and intelligent assistants is valuing what cannot yet be falsified so easily: one’s own style, strange ideas, imperfect phrases that reveal that there is a person behind it.
TL;DR:
Generation Z has popularized “AI;DR” (AI; didn’t read) as an evolution of the classic millennial “TL;DR”, to quickly discard texts that appear to be generated by AI or artificial filler without an authentic human voice.
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Image | Unsplash (Firza Pratama)
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