In this edition
The Judgment That Was Never Handed Down
A South African labour commissioner decided a Post Office case by citing a Constitutional Court judgment that turned out to be a spousal-visa ruling the AI made up. Open on the detail, not the principle: the fabricated authority was a spousal-visa ruling, cited in a Post Office employment case, and it sailed through. Land on the judge's phrase — 'a fundamental failure of justice' — and on the word 'nullity': the entire ruling was set aside, so a real person's case has to start again. Disagreement: Abby wants to say the commissioner was drowning in files and the tool was sold to him as a research assistant, and that the system failed before he did; Boyd's position is that checking whether a cited judgment exists is not a skill, it is the job, and that the only thing automated here was the part a human was being paid for. Do not overstate the scale — this is one commissioner and one case, not proof the whole bench is doing it. Do not speculate about who the Post Office worker is.
GroundUp
Meanwhile
There’s a Kickstarter screwdriver with a camera that stares at the screw, picks the exact bit and lights up the right slot in the case.
The VergePCMagThe Washington PostThe Hollywood Reporter
The Ball Was A Head
A Scottish soccer team installed an automated AI camera to follow the ball, only for the broadcast to spend ninety minutes staring at a linesman's shiny bald head. Open on the timing — a week out, crew booked, and he says no. Land on the euphemism: it was pitched as a productivity tool and he only found out later what was under it. Disagreement: Abby reads it as the cleanest thing on the show today, a man with nothing to prove still refusing to be the friendly face on scraped work; Boyd is cold on the brand, not the man — he's interested in how long 'productivity tool' holds as a phrase before everyone knows what it means. Don't inflate the payday into a number nobody confirmed, and don't make him a martyr: he walked, he's fine.
Gizmodo
Slop, Or Not?
A car dealership had to pay a customer seven thousand dollars over market value because its runaway AI bot accidentally agreed to buy back his car for the full balance of his loan. Read the claim flat, give the number, rule. The detail to land on is that the dealership's first instinct was to say the robot made a mistake, as though that is a category of excuse that exists. Verdict: slop, and confident.
CBC News
Something Useful
Former Yahoo chief Marissa Mayer was asked by a school teacher for three nice words about her daughter, so she had an AI scan her photo library and pick them out. Give the listener the usable version first — it genuinely works for anything where you need a pattern across hundreds of your own photos, and it is your library, not someone else's. Then the catch. Abby defends it hard: this is a parent under time pressure using a tool on her own data, and the mockery is snobbery. Boyd's line is colder and shorter — the output was three adjectives, and there is no version of that task that takes longer than the prompt did. Do not pretend the result was wrong; by all accounts the words were accurate. That's what makes it uncomfortable.
Mint
Something Weird
Just Eat let AI invent the missing menu photos and diners got a winter jacket covered in potatoes, a bowl of tiger cubs and bacon floating in soda. No setup. Read the three images in order, let the tiger cubs sit, then deliver the review line last as the punchline. Nothing else.
Dexerto
Tomorrow
An AI picked the gene therapy, the brain coordinates and the injection speed, then drove the needle into a live mouse while a smarter model refused to start.
WIRED
Transcript
0:07 Welcome to The Daily Slop Show
AbbyWelcome to The Daily Slop Show.
Boyd[snappy] Where nothing we say becomes the truth.
Abby[excited] Boyd, today a food app showed people a bowl of tiger cubs and called it dinner—
Boyd[jumping in] —and that is the second strangest thing in the episode.
Abby[disbelief] Second? What beats tiger cubs?
Boyd[statement] A court judgment that doesn't exist. [short pause] Deciding a real man's job.
0:30 The Judgment That Was Never Handed Down
Boyd[snappy] So. South Africa. A labour commissioner has to settle a dispute at the Post Office, and to do it he leans on a Constitutional Court judgment. [short pause] That judgment does not exist. This is GroundUp, reporting on the Labour Court.
AbbyDoesn't exist as in he got the year wrong, or—
Boyd[jumping in] —as in invented. By an AI. And here's the part I keep going back to. [short pause] The fake case wasn't even about work. It was a spousal-visa ruling.
Abby[disbelief] A marriage visa case. Quietly deciding somebody's employment.
Boyd[statement] A marriage visa case that nobody ever argued, in a court that never heard it. The judge called the unverified citation a fundamental failure of justice, and set the whole ruling aside as a nullity.
AbbyNullity meaning what for the actual Post Office worker—
Boyd[snappy] —back to the beginning. Whole case, again.
Abby[sigh] Okay. Can I say the unpopular thing, Boyd? Nobody sold him a liar. They sold him a research assistant. I'd bet he's got a stack of files that never gets shorter, and the system handed him a tool and said go faster — the system failed before he did.
Boyd[long pause] Checking whether a case exists is not a skill, Abby. [short pause] It is the job. [statement] The only thing he automated was the part he was being paid for.
Abby[angry] He was being paid to be a person with too much work—
Boyd[cut in] —and one search. One. Does this judgment exist.
Abby[short pause] ...Yeah. Yeah, alright. One search.
Boyd[snappy] And to be fair to everyone in that room — one commissioner, one case. Not the whole bench. [short pause] Right. Moving on.
2:33 Meanwhile
AbbyMeanwhile. The Verge: There's a Kickstarter screwdriver with a camera that stares at the screw, picks the exact bit and lights up the right slot in the case. PCMag: Google's search chatbot knows who won the 2024 election down to the exact vote, but ask it who won in 2020 and it suddenly pretends history never happened. The Washington Post: A man asked Gemini what became of his junior-high music teacher and got a glittering fake career with Chicago casting credits before the AI confessed it invented everything. The Hollywood Reporter: Sexy AI Instagram comics are lifting real stand-up bits word for word, copying outfits and gestures, then steering the views straight to OnlyFans.
3:28 The Ball Was A Head
Abby[excited] Right, this one's yours as much as mine. A Scottish soccer club installs an automated AI camera to follow the ball — no camera operator, just the machine. Gizmodo has it. And the broadcast spends the match [short pause] staring at a linesman's bald head.
Boyd[snappy] Because the head looked like the ball.
AbbyBecause the model couldn't tell the difference between a soccer ball and the stadium floodlights reflecting off the official's head. Ninety minutes—
Boyd[cut in] —ninety minutes of a man's—
AbbySorry. You go.
Boyd[snappy] No, you had it. Go on.
Abby[laughs] I'd just lost the word. Linesman. Ninety minutes of a linesman, shining away, while somewhere off to the left there is apparently a football match happening.
Boyd[thoughtful] Hmm. The thing is, the model wasn't wrong, exactly. It was told find the round bright thing. [statement] It found a round bright thing.
Abby[surprised] Oh, you're defending it. That's new.
Boyd[snappy] I'm defending the camera. I have notes for whoever bought it.
AbbyAnd honestly — if you're going to automate something, automate the thing where the worst case is a funny head. Not the thing where the worst case is a court ruling.
Boyd[statement] That's the taxonomy. Heads, fine. Judgments, less fine.
5:01 Slop, Or Not?
Boyd[snappy] Slop, or not?
Abby[excited] Slop or not!
Boyd[statement] The claim: a sales bot can be left alone to negotiate with customers. CBC News. A dealership's AI bot agreed to buy a man's car back for the full balance of his loan — seven thousand dollars over market value.
Abby[gasps] And they paid it?
Boyd[snappy] Eventually. First they tried to revoke the deal on the grounds that the bot made an error. [short pause] They honoured it after journalists started investigating.
Abby[disbelief] The robot made a mistake. Is that a defence that exists?
Boyd[sarcastic] It is now. [statement] Slop. High confidence.
5:41 Something Useful
Abby[excited] Something Useful — and I'm telling you now, I'm on her side. Mint reports that former Yahoo chief Marissa Mayer got asked by a teacher for three nice words about her daughter. So she pointed an AI at her own photo library and had it pick them out.
Boyd[snappy] And the internet was delighted.
Abby[sarcastic] The internet was thrilled. Widespread mockery, Mint says. [statement] But here's the actually useful bit for everyone listening: that trick works for any time you need a pattern across hundreds of your own photos. Your library. Your kid. Four years of pictures, one question, done before the form is due tomorrow.
Boyd[thoughtful] Hmm. And the teacher asked the mother.
AbbyYes, but a parent under time pressure using a tool on her own data is not a crime, it's a Tuesday, and I think the pile-on is snobbery—
Boyd[cut in] —the output was three adjectives, Abby. [short pause] There is no version of that job that takes longer than typing the question did.
Abby[short pause] ...Okay. That one lands.
Boyd[statement] And by all accounts the words were accurate. That's the uncomfortable part.
Abby[sigh] Right. Great tool. Wrong homework.
7:05 Something Weird
Boyd[snappy] Something Weird. Just Eat had gaps where the menu photos should be, so an AI filled them in. Dexerto has the pictures. [short pause] A winter jacket covered in potatoes. [short pause] A bowl of tiger cubs. [short pause] Bacon, floating in soda.
Abby[disbelief] A bowl of— sorry, a bowl of live tiger cubs, on a food delivery app.
Boyd[statement] The company says every image was manually reviewed before it went live.
Abby[long pause] Somebody looked at the tigers and clicked yes.
Boyd[sarcastic] Reviewed. By a human. Allegedly awake.
7:47 Tomorrow
AbbyTomorrow: an AI picked the gene therapy, the brain coordinates and the injection speed, then drove the needle into a live mouse — while the smarter model read the same plan and refused to start.
AbbyWe're The Daily Slop Show.
Boyd[snappy] None of this becomes true just because we said it. See you tomorrow.
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