AI slop is Macquarie Dictionary's Word of the Year 2025. It also won the favored vote. The dictionary defines the word as “low-quality content created by generative AI (artificial intelligence), often containing errors and never requested by the user.”
I've spent the last 12 months researching anxious, duplicitous, and ubiquitous generative AI – and drowning in AI bullshit. That's why I welcome the alternative.
This 12 months began with Arwa Mahdawi's Guardian column in January he warned that the web was “rapidly being overtaken by AI nonsense” – and shared bizarre examples on Facebook: AI-generated images of Jesus constructed from shrimp.
But AI slop isn't all fun, games and eye-rolling.
An AI journalist for the business magazine Forbes wrote in September This AI scum is replacing once helpful professions. And a social media entrepreneur who turned to the “side hustle” of making AI content after being laid off by a web company says it's the most recent trend for making extra income, much like Uber or street vending.
Although I applauded the winner, I used to be largely pondering of the Macquarie dictionary Shortlist 2025 was banal, even boring.
Where, I assumed, are the colourful expressions of days gone? The “bachelor handbag” (a take-out fried chicken in a plastic bag)? The “Milkshake Duck” (an individual favored by the media until a questionable discovery causes his popularity to plummet)? “Goblin mode”? None of them appear to have stuck, but they were fun on the time.
“Blandification”?
A committee selects a shortlist of 15 words for Word of the Year from the list of latest entries and senses included within the Macquarie Dictionary's annual online update. The public is then invited to vote for the People's Choice Word of the Year.
“Blandification“ – a term I assumed I had coined, although it has been within the Oxford English Dictionary since 1969 – doesn’t begin to explain lots of the 15 expressions that Macquarie put to the general public to vote on.
“Australian sushi.” (That means just about what you'd think: the type of nori hand rolls often sold to-go that “often contain non-traditional fillings.”) “Camping in the toilet.” (Isolate yourself in a toilet stall to hunt solitude, avoid work, or regulate emotions akin to anxiety or stress.) “Blind Box.” (A mysterious box containing an invisible collectible toy or figurine.)
And a term that everybody with or around children seems to know… and which confuses them slightly: “six-seven.” (A “nonsense” expression popular with and related to children and young people a rap track and a basketball player who’s 1.80 meters tall.)
Nell Redmond/AAP
The absurdly elusive term apparently makes life hell for math teachers. It has already morphed into the much more ridiculous “six-sendy” for “go all out” and “41” for “nothing and every part without delay.”
Dictionary.com has made a call “six-seven” because the word of the 12 months – calling it “the logical endpoint of being continually online, endlessly scrolling, and consuming content fed to users by algorithms trained by other algorithms.”
Social psychologist Adam Mastroianni said recently We find ourselves in “a crisis of conventionality and an epidemic of the on a regular basis.” Macquarie's selection largely embodies this sense.
One of the Macquarie Committee's two honorable mentions was “Clinker“, considered one of those words whose meaning changes over time. “Clanker,” a term originating in Star Wars, once referred to a literal, metallic robot. Today it’s a slur for “a synthetic intelligence-powered robot” – like ChatGPT and other types of AI – that performs tasks that a human would otherwise do.
The other was medical misogyny: Entrenched prejudices against women related to medical treatment and knowledge, particularly in the world of reproductive health.
Parasocial and vibe coding
Macquarie's AI failure is reflected in the opposite dictionaries' decisions for the 2025 Word of the Year, which overall reflect the damaging influence of social media.
Cambridge Dictionary chosen parasocial: a connection someone feels between themselves and a megastar they don't know, a fictional character, or an AI. For example, the tens of millions of “Swifties” who sent congratulatory messages to Taylor Swift after she announced her engagement.
Alistair Grant/AAP
Collins Dictionary selected “Vibe coding“Creating an app or website by describing it (AI) as a substitute of writing programming code manually.” Collins' chief executive says it “perfectly captures how language evolves together with technology.”
Arch-skeptical Professor Gary Marcus, who studies the interface between cognitive psychology, neuroscience and artificial intelligence, describes AI as “a souped-up burping machine trained on mined, copyrighted material.”
This is all pretty depressing – but there’s a wave against AI-generated content. Feminist writer Caitlin Moran, in her Times columnhas spoken harshly about AI slop, describing it as making ridiculous suggestions akin to using glue to make cheese follow a pizza “to offer it more stickiness.”
Vote in your favorite words
If you want you had the possibility to vote for a word of the 12 months, it's not too late. Vote for the People's Choice by the Oxford English Dictionary closes December 2nd.
The American Dialect Society is the one Word of the Year announced after the tip of the calendar 12 months. There are also other categories, akin to Most Useful/Promising, Informal Word of the Year, and Euphemism of the Year.
The winners will probably be chosen in a two-day live event with the Linguistic Society of America in New Orleans on January eighth and ninth. Sounds like fun!
