Frankly Getting Sick of Slop About "AI" (Slop)
This morning I found time to resume reading the latest Schneier book. In a chapter entitled "AI-ENHANCED LEGISLATORS" it asserts that slop "will be part of this process" (of legislation). This is the sort of thing that frustrates me about this book, namely that it perpetuates this sense or perception of inevitability, as if to say slop is here to stay, to take over everything, and nothing can be done to curtail it, not even scandals and blunders (like these). I humbly disagree.
The one-page introduction to this chapter states that somehow, miraculously, slop will do a better job then a skilled and knowledgeable person because... reasons (that I'm not buying). They seem to be selling this idea that LLMs can somehow capture a lot of knowledge of existing laws. But no knowledge is leveraged at all. It says legislators "need to articulate those choices in arcane legal language", but that overlooks the simple reality that slop is merely a parrot that gets many things wrong and presents risks (not "both opportunities and risks for lawmakers" as they - Schneier and his coauthor - optimistically put it).
Put bluntly, slop is for lazy and sloppy lawmakers who wish not to do their job but to cheat. We need to treat them no better than plagiarists; they're not "embracing innovation", they just fake doing their job.
Seeing how the public perception/consensus has shifted since this book was first published, I cannot help but wonder if Schneier would phrase things differently (if finalised in 2026).
"Bruce [Schneier] has been kind of retired since just after he acquired copied of the Snowden documents," a friend told me yesterday, "so he's out of practice."
I'm determined to finish reading this book, but I just wish Schneier stopped calling every computer-generated (CG) thing "AI" (see screenshot at the top) and instead focused on what slop boils down to. Calling everything out there "AI" serves nobody and nothing but the Ponzi scheme. Sometimes it makes me wonder who or what sponsored the sending of this book to me (for free). █