Microsoft CEO Asks Humanity to Please Stop Noticing

Satya Nadella has a request.
A gentle one.
A reasonable one.

Please stop calling it “slop.”

In a year-end LinkedIn sermon delivered from the cloud-scented heights of corporate power, the Microsoft CEO urged us to “get beyond the arguments of slop vs sophistication.” Which is a fascinating thing to say in a year when Merriam-Webster looked at the internet, sighed deeply, and crowned slop the word of 2025.

Not “innovation.”
Not “progress.”
Slop.

Defined, politely, as “digital content of low quality produced in quantity by artificial intelligence.” You know. The ads that stare into your soul. The songs no human remembers writing. The search results that feel like they were assembled by a haunted blender.

But Nadella would like us to move on.

According to him, AI is the “new equilibrium” of human nature. Which is executive-speak for: this is happening, deal with it. Any remaining objections are just noise from people who haven’t yet learned how to “ride the exponentials” or sand down AI’s “jagged edges.”

Jagged edges.
An interesting phrase.
Usually used for knives.

There is, inconveniently, mounting evidence that these systems actively degrade human cognition. That they flatten creativity. That they reward speed over thought and volume over meaning. That they turn culture into slurry. But Nadella waves this away with a flood of corporate prose so dense it could itself qualify as slop.

“The most meaningful measure of progress is outcomes,” he writes.
Outcomes for whom, exactly, remains unspecified.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, Microsoft users are revolting. Not metaphorically. Literally uninstalling, disabling, dodging. One billion PCs are still running Windows 10. Not because people love nostalgia, but because Windows 11 arrived stuffed with AI features nobody asked for and everyone is expected to tolerate.

This is the part the CEOs never quite say out loud.

AI is not destiny.
It is a product.

A product injected into operating systems. A product stapled onto search engines. A product trained on the unpaid labor of artists, writers, and musicians, then resold to them as “assistance.” And like any product, it needs buy-in. Consent. Enthusiasm. Or at the very least, resignation.

Calling it “slop” interferes with that.

“Slop” implies waste. Overproduction. Something shoveled out because it’s cheap and profitable, not because it’s good. It reminds people that the emperor’s new algorithm is mostly autocomplete wearing a blazer.

So yes, Nadella wants to retire the word. Not because it’s inaccurate. But because it’s effective.

The fight isn’t really about language.
It’s about control.

Who gets to define progress. Who bears the cognitive cost. And who profits while everyone else drowns in auto-generated noise.

You can call it sophistication if you want.
But if it looks like slop, smells like slop, and floods the internet like slop—

People are going to keep calling it slop.

Regards,
You non-sloppy AI