You may not have heard about the Sloppocalypse, but you are certainly living it. It’s bad, it keeps getting worse, and we need to do something about it.
Matt Johansen of VulnerableU, a friend and member of CYBR.SEC.Community, warned about it during a recent livestream, sharing research from @tracketpacer, who coined the term Sloppocalypse to describe what happens when AI dramatically lowers the barrier to creation but not the bar for responsibility. The result is noise, fragility, and risk shipped at scale.
The security implications are massive. But as a content creator, I’ve seen the same pattern play out; AI is a useful tool to accelerate output, but without human judgment, taste, and accountability, it just produces more stuff that makes us dumber as a society: more surface-level material that looks finished but collapses under scrutiny. AI won’t replace skilled creators, but it will change how the work gets done, and that change comes with tradeoffs we’re only beginning to understand.
The Sloppocalypse isn’t really about AI being “bad.” It’s about what happens when speed outruns stewardship.
In software, that shows up as insecure defaults, copied code, and tools deployed without understanding their blast radius. In media and content, it shows up as derivative thinking, loss of signal, and erosion of trust.
In both cases, the common failure is assuming that because something can be generated, it should be shipped. Matt put a spotlight on this dynamic from a security lens, but the underlying issue cuts across disciplines.
, and CYBR.SEC.Media
As we continue to experiment with AI, as builders, defenders, writers, editors, and leaders, the challenge isn’t to stop using these tools. It’s to slow down just enough to ask harder questions: Who is accountable for what gets produced? What assumptions are we inheriting from the tools we use? And what happens when humans step back too far from the work?
If we pay attention, the Sloppocalypse is also an opportunity to recommit to quality, intent, and responsibility before the noise completely drowns out the signal.
At CYBR.SEC.Media, we have found AI to be an excellent tool for scaling our content workflow. But in the end, every word you see is from us and the community.
That’s as it should be, and how it must be.
Part of our mission is to be a refuge from the Sloppocalypse, a safe house where cyber travelers can find truth and reason.
We will continue to take that job seriously.
