“slop”当选2025年度词汇，我们该何去何从？
“Slop” Was the 2025 Word of the Year. What Comes Next?
文本难度：考研 易
刘立军供稿
Merriam-Webster named “slop” its 2025 word of the year, defining it as “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.” In its announcement, Merriam-Webster noted that, like “slime, sludge, and muck, slop has the wet sound of something you don’t want to touch.” Similarly, The New York Times observed that slop, in graphic terms, “conjures images of heaps of unappetizing food being shoveled into troughs.”
韦氏词典将slop评为2025年度词汇，将其定义为“通常由人工智能生成的大量低质量数字内容”。在公告中，韦氏词典指出，slop与slime（黏液）、sludge（淤泥）和muck（污物）一样，带有某种令人不愿触碰之物的湿漉漉的声响。《纽约时报》也以形象的语言评论道：“slop”会让人联想到“一堆堆难以下咽的食物被铲进食槽”的画面。
Slop is an umbrella term that encompasses a vast range of terrible AI-generated content, from videos to news stories to ads to books to work reports. It can look real enough, but often seems just a bit off (and sometimes jarringly so). And it tends to feel (or even be) cheap, derivative, or recycled. These qualities of slop can leave us feeling cold, disengaged, and anxious. As such, Merriam-Webster’s choice reflects a deeper psychological crisis about how AI-generated content is reshaping our emotional landscape.
slop是一个统称，涵盖从视频、新闻报道、广告、书籍到工作报告等各类糟糕的人工智能生成内容。这类内容乍看之下可能足够逼真，却常常显得略微不对劲（有时甚至令人明显不适）。它往往给人廉价、缺乏原创性或反复套用模板的感觉。这些特质会使我们感到冷漠、疏离乃至焦虑。因此，韦氏词典的选择折射出一种更深层的心理危机——人工智能生成的内容正在重塑我们的情感世界。
The Slop-Doom Feedback Loop “Slop”
与末日感的恶性循环
In her recent article, Laura Glitson, a humanities scholar, wrote about “the experience of slop and doom .... whereby experience is shaped by gothic undertones such as surreality, paranoia, suspicion, menace, and most of all, anxiety.” Glitson quotes from a Reddit post that captured this malaise: “The internet makes me miserable for 80% of the time I’m on it, but I just can’t get out …. Have I developed mild to moderate anxiety from constant exposure to news and social media that indicate we’re headed to unavoidable collapse? Sure have.”
人文学者劳拉·格利特森在近期一篇文章中写道：“‘slop’与末日感的体验……是由超现实、偏执、猜疑、威胁感，尤其是焦虑等哥特式基调所塑造的。”她引用了一则Reddit帖子来捕捉这种普遍的不安情绪：“我在网上80%的时间都感到痛苦，但就是无法抽身……我是不是因为持续接触那些预示我们正走向不可避免的崩溃结局的新闻和社交媒体，而产生了轻度至中度的焦虑？答案是肯定的。”
Glitson outlined a circular process through which slop leads to doom by overwhelming our attention with “affective noise”; conversely, doom powers slop by coloring it with the threat of impending catastrophe. Her analysis parallels the emotional consequences of doomscrolling uncovered by psychology researchers and ties in with research on the effects of information overload.
格利特森勾勒出一个循环过程：slop通过充斥我们注意力的“情感噪音”引发末日感；反过来，末日感又为slop注入“灾难即将来临”的威胁色彩，从而助长其传播。她的分析与心理学研究者揭示的“末日刷屏行为”（doomscrolling）所带来的情绪后果相呼应，也与信息过载效应的研究密切相关。
The Normalization Paradox
“正常化”的悖论
Yoshija Walter (2024) writes about the possible psychological processes by which AI, including slop, is becoming normalized, as well as the possible psychological outcomes of this normalization. Walter summarizes research that shows normalization is occurring and highlights two mechanisms that may be underway.
Yoshija Walter（2024）探讨了人工智能（包括slop）如何通过某些心理机制逐渐被社会所“常态化”，以及这种“常态化”可能带来的各种心理后果。Walter就针对“常态化”现象的研究进行了综述，并重点指出两种潜在机制。
First, he describes a classic psychological process, the “mere exposure effect,” whereby people develop more positive views of people or things over time just by being exposed to them. This can be a good thing, in that people may increasingly perceive the ways in which AI can be helpful. Unfortunately, it can also lead us to downplay the risks of AI, including the possibility that we will become over-reliant on it in harmful ways.
首先，他描述了一种经典的心理现象——“单纯曝光效应”，即人们仅因反复接触某人或某物，便会对其产生更积极的看法。这本可以是件好事，例如人们可能越来越意识到人工智能的实用价值。但不幸的是，这也可能导致我们低估人工智能的风险，包括过度依赖AI而造成伤害的可能性。
Second, he describes the “black box effect,” whereby we develop negative emotions, such as unease and a sense of foreboding, when we don’t understand how something – such as AI – works. Walter notes evidence that these feelings are evoked even among some who work for tech companies that develop AI. We wonder how slop might affect these two processes. Will the positive aspects of normalization (driven by the mere exposure effect) be upended by growing cynicism, or will we become complacent in the face of a growing inability to separate truths from falsehoods? And will the unease and anxiety fueled by the black-box effect be compounded by the growing presence of slop?
其次，他提出“黑箱效应”：当我们无法理解某个事物（比如人工智能）的运作原理时，便容易产生不安、不祥的预感等负面情绪。Walter指出，即便是在开发AI的科技公司内部，也有员工表现出此类情绪。我们不禁要问：slop的泛滥将如何影响这两种机制？由单纯曝光效应带来的正面认知，是否会因日益增长的愤世嫉俗而瓦解？抑或我们将在真假难辨的信息洪流中变得自负？同时，黑箱效应所引发的不安与焦虑，是否会因slop的蔓延而进一步加剧？
A Policy Role for Psychology
心理学在政策制定中的角色
Walter concludes that “as AI becomes more integrated into our daily lives, it is crucial to understand the associated psychosocial implications, especially concerning AI safety concerns.” These implications involve considerations of cognitive processes, emotional responses, and interpersonal interactions. Psychological science, which studies all of these areas, must be a part of any policymaking regarding AI in order for us to reclaim our agency.
Walter总结道：“随着人工智能日益融入我们的日常生活，理解与其相关的社会心理影响至关重要，尤其是在人工智能安全问题方面。”这些影响涉及认知过程、情绪反应以及人际互动等多个层面。而心理学作为研究上述领域的科学，必须参与人工智能相关政策的制定，唯有如此，我们才能重新掌握自身的能动性。
【词汇】
1. slop n. 由人工智能生成的大量低质量数字内容
2. slime n. 黏液
3. sludge n. 淤泥
4. muck n. 污物
5. conjure v. 唤起
6. unappetizing adj. 难以下咽的；令人反感的
7. trough n. 食槽
8. jarring adj. 明显不协调的；令人不适的
9. disengaged adj. 疏离的；情感上抽离的
10. reshape v. 重塑
11. humanity n. 人文学科
12. gothic adj. 哥特式的（带有神秘或恐怖特征的）
13. undertone n. 潜在基调
14. paranoia n. 偏执；多疑
15. malaise n. 莫名的不适感（或不满）
16. impending adj. 即将发生的
17. overload n. 超载；信息过载
18. foreboding n. 不祥的预感
19. upend v. 颠覆
20. psychosocial adj. 社会心理的
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