Opinion2 sources114 comments in the community
No AI Slop: A Manifesto
Hacker News: Front Page ·
The Brief · written from 2 sources
- A manifesto titled "No AI Slop" was posted at slopmanifesto.com and reached the Hacker News front page on 2026-11-13 with 195 points and 114 comments.
- The manifesto asks what slop is, why it happens, and how to fight it, and states that AI can only amplify human judgement.
- Latent Space made the manifesto the title story of its AI news roundup on 2026-11-14.
Why it matters
It frames unreviewed AI-generated code and documents as a quality and accountability problem for teams. Commenters disagree on whether human review can keep pace with AI output and whether the stance can survive commercial pressure for speed.
Who’s affected
- Software developers and teams reviewing AI-generated code or documents
- #ai
- #code-review
- #software-quality
- #manifesto
- #developer-culture
What developers are saying
Based on 114 comments · Mixed reactions
Commenters broadly sympathise with the manifesto's concern for human review, accountability and shared understanding, but many doubt it can win against speed-focused management and market pressure. Others argue the definition of slop is vague, that AI-assisted work can be valuable even when not hand-reviewed, and that the framing is too anti-AI.
- Human review bottleneck25%
- Vague definition of slop20%
- Agile-style adoption doubts20%
- Future of software development15%
- Support for human accountability20%
In favour
- + Human review and accountability are needed for AI-generated work
- + Focus on outcomes and shared understanding over code volume and token spend
- + Asking for prompts in contributions can help reviewers judge the thinking behind a change
Concerns
- − Defining slop as low effort could cap AI productivity
- − Business and management incentives favour speed, so the manifesto may not gain traction
- − Review capacity cannot keep up with the volume of AI-generated code
- − The anti-AI framing may alienate the people it wants to reach
“The fact of the matter is software development of the future is not going to look like AI slop, and its also not going to look like the hand crafted engineering of the past.”
“This manifesto gives me a spark on hope I haven't felt in months.”
“There's no responsibility in not reviewing some code you ship, this manifesto is really more pro than against slop.”
Timeline
Full coverage · 2 sources
- 1h ago ↗
Latent Space
[AINews] The No AI Slop Manifesto - 14h ago ↗
Hacker News: Front Page
No AI Slop: A Manifesto