Infinite scrolling, social media and AI have made our attention a rare commodity too valuable to happily distribute it in contents without substance. Millennials have become accustomed to asking for quick summaries with the term “TL;DR” (Too Long; Didn’t Read). The summary: a lot of text.
Generation Z, transgressive and cornered by AI, has found another way to filter what is or is not worth their attention. If content appears to be generated by AI, it is delivered with just five characters: “AI;DR” (AI, didn’t read). This tag is used to flag content that is perceived as “slop.” AI-generated filler that wastes time without providing real value.
Behind this label there is satiety, but also a form of defending something as basic as wanting to read people who have taken the trouble to write a text.
From “too long” to “too artificial”
Tony “Sid” Sundharam, co-founder of the Sink It app, defined the essence of the new term on his blog: “For me, writing is the most direct window into how someone thinks, perceives and understands the world.” For a growing number of young people, delegating that window of humanity to an AI breaks the pact of honesty between those who write and those who read.
In the background, a much more powerful idea is latent: “Why should I bother reading something that someone else is not interested in writing?”
“TL;DR” was born, as internet memes do, as an inside joke on forums and networks. A way to admit that the effort-reward balance had been exceeded. The text was too long to spend time on. Over time it became a kind of generational nod: there was a lot of information, little time and limited patience for infinite blocks of text.
“AI;DR” reuses that same structure, but changes the paradigm. Now the problem is no longer the length (or at least it is not the main reason), now the problem is the origin of the content.
The idea is not that the text is long, but that seems generated by an AIwithout its own voice, critical sense or experience behind it. When someone labels a text like this, they are not asking for a summary. You’re saying it’s not even worth starting to read.
A few days ago, my colleague Javier Lacort said that AI is conditioning us to look for the “summarize” button in all content to save time, thus depriving us of the luxury of enjoying a reading in its entirety, with its nuances and its readings between the lines. AI may be more efficient in saving reading time, but it takes a toll on the essence of the message.
Fatigue in the face of AI “slop”
In the new paradigm of rapid content consumption, “AI;DR” becomes a kind of advertisement between humans. A quick way to point out that something smells automated and that it might be better to pass by. When someone replies “AI;DR” to a text, they’re doing more than just complaining about AI.
As Sid explained in his blog, the fact that someone has had an idea, has fought over it in front of a blank page and has spent time organizing it, are “rudimentary proofs of work from a pre-AI era”, small tests of effort that legitimize the author before the reader.
In contrast to that, the famous “dead internet theory”. Machines writing for machines.
The same generation that lives surrounded by automation and intelligent assistants is valuing what cannot yet be falsified so easily: one’s own style, strange ideas, imperfect phrases that reveal that there is a person behind it.
TL;DR:
Generation Z has popularized “AI;DR” (AI; didn’t read) as an evolution of the classic millennial “TL;DR”, to quickly discard texts that appear to be generated by AI or artificial filler without an authentic human voice.
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Image | Unsplash (Firza Pratama)
