Reflections on 2025 through the Word(s) of the Year

In March 2025, I posted an opinion piece entitled “My Disillusionment with Generative AI”. Things have gotten worse since then, to the extent that “Slop” and “AI Slop” have been picked as the Word(s) of the Year for 2025. What follows are my thoughts on the trajectory of technology and, more specifically, AI, as reflected in the Word(s) of the Year (WOTY).

To start off, Merriam-Webster’s 2025 Word of the Year is “Slop”, with Macquarie Dictionary being more explicit with “AI Slop”. They are defined respectively as:

(these definitions and others below as are quoted verbatim from the sources linked)

In both cases, the common denominator is “low quality”, and more often than not, put to use when referring to AI-generated images, audio, video or text on social media that is of obviously fake (and I argue against “containing errors” part of the definition). But to me, this “AI slop” has much deeper negative connotations with undesirable real-word outcomes and societal impact, as more and more we can no longer tell if AI output is fake as the quality is getting objectively better with (subjectively) less and less effort and partically no barriers to entry.

The words chosen by the Cambridge and Oxford Dictionaries exemplify a few of these ills as a result of technology more generally:

The Cambridge Dictionary’s word is “parasocial” - as we recall extreme cases where people fall in love with AI “companions” and marry their digital “waifus” and “husbandos”).

The Oxford University Press’s (compound) word is “Rage Bait”, which is sensationalized “clickbait” taken to the extreme - here we see outcomes of algorithms that amplify polarization and discrimination disguised as optimization, e.g. gerrymandering, algorithmic pricing, filter bubbles and echo chambers.

The Collins’ WOTY shortlists “broligarcy”, but waters down its definition as it ignores the “big tech” aspect, which I would contend are the source of our AI and algorithmic woes... although their thumbnail contains portraits of four of the wealthiest, though perhaps not the most influential, tech bros on the planet:

In a post in the Collins Language Lovers Blog, the author observes that “many words on this year’s shortlist speak to fundamental tensions: we’re embracing AI and technology... whilst simultaneously resisting it.”

On one hand, their word of the year, “Vibe Coding”, has a (mostly) positive connotation,though it unfortunately only applies to a very small subset of society i.e. coders:

And on the other hand, other shortlisted words are much more negative - they highlight the inauthenticity of manufactured online personas though “Aura farming” and behaviours like “task masking”, perhaps rejection of work to a lesser extent than “laying flat”. Quoting from the blog post:

But these ills are just the tip of the iceberg, and the word “slop” makes light of challenges we face as society in ensuring the responsible use of AI. Deep fakes, voice cloning, fake news, personalized spam and so on will result in a deep(er) mistrust of all “truth” due to a proliferation of disinformation; a landscape rife for all forms of fraud, scams and blackmail; future generations facing social isolation and stunted intelligence - be it social / emotional intelligence or formal education; irreconcilable divides as already mentioned above; and as a portend of what is in store for 2026, pornography and other forms of perversions, as generated by Grok.

-

Finally, a word shortlisted by Merriam-Webster offers a bit of relief from (my) doom and gloom, by simply reminding us to “Touch Grass”!

Aside: I’m not even going to mention Dictionary.com’s word of the year, which, in my IMHO, is a big nothing.

Well, Happy New Year?