This is an interesting article, though I resist its central argument. It is, in a nutshell: "The problem with slop capitalism, in my view, is its attempt to... replace the 'jungle of functionalist rationality' which de Certeau saw in the cities of the 1980s with the desert of artificial rationality we see in the cities and social platforms of 2025." The use of the term 'slop' is suggestive, as is this image: we suppose that what we get from AI is inferior to what we had before. But I was alive in the 1980s. The 'functionalist rationality' of those times was a mess, a mix of Thatcherism, Reganomics, total quality management, 22.5% interest, Bhopal, garbage, famine, corruption and war. Today is bad but it's actually better than it was in the 1980s. Rather than a narrowing of the channels, what many people see in AI is an opening of the floodgates, something the functionaries may view with suspicion and fear, but for the rest of us, signifies hope and the possibility of change for the better.
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