Struggling to put your AI aversion into words? Here's a handy glossary

From mild vegetarianism to full-blown haterdom, there's a label for everything

Opinion Are you an AI hater, an AI vegan, or a slightly more moderate AI vegetarian? Or are you on the side of the clankers? A bot-licker, a prompt-fondler, a ChatNPC?

LLM bots are everywhere, from your phone to your browser, and increasingly so is their output, which is widely termed "slop" – a term documented two years ago by AI writer and advocate Simon Willison. The Reg FOSS desk was horrified to receive, among his Christmas gifts, a set of drinks coasters printed to vaguely resemble vinyl LPs with illegible slop labels. As well as endless torrents of slop, there are also endless waves of bot promoters.

Some of us remain unconvinced. We thought that if you too are a skeptic who has not been persuaded that there's any form of intelligence in these text-prediction machines, there might be reassurance in knowing that you're not alone – and that there are some useful terms for how staunch your resistance is.

Sean Boots recently offered a new term: "Generative AI vegetarianism." He describes a moderate position:

I want to write my own emails. I want to write my own (mediocre) software code. I want to learn and think and ponder with other humans, not with a text-prediction system built by consuming all the text on the internet.

Even so, he continues:

If you're stoked about generative AI tools, that's cool... In my day job, I'm keen on helping people use AI tools to make government data more accessible. I'm not here to cut you down; I'm not a generative AI vegan, after all. (Sorry, vegans!)

His list of reasons is sound, and there is much to recommend in a non-confrontational approach. However, it is not this vulture's. Boots also links to several other, more strident statements, and we enjoyed all of them. Jenny Zhang wrote in "choosing friction":

The promise of AI is that it removes friction... In their ideal world, you don't have to think about anything because an AI will do your thinking for you, and so you can fire everyone whose job it was to think.

I quite like thinking, and I think humans should do more of it, and I think the less we do it the more our thinking muscles will atrophy. This seems bad for everyone except for authoritarians who wish we were easier to control. I also happen to think AI is quite bad at thinking and that what LLMs do is not thinking at all, but I could be wrong!

It's just over 2,000 words long, and we can't really fault one of them. We also liked Rusty Foster's recent "A.I. Isn't People," which carefully and methodically deconstructs the claims that large language models can "think" or "reason" or "learn" or are "intelligent" for any possible definition of the term.

The one we sympathized with most is from Anthony Moser. His statement is plain – "I Am An AI Hater":

This is considered rude, but I do not care, because I am a hater.

To speak politely about AI, you put disclaimers before criticism: of course I'm not against it entirely; perhaps in a few years when; maybe for other purposes, but. You are supposed to debate how and when it should be used. You are supposed to take for granted that it must be useful somewhere, to someone, for something, eventually. People who are rich and smart and respected are saying so, and it would be arrogant to disagree with such people.

But I am a hater, which is a kind of integrity. It means I am willing to disagree with anyone, even if it is rude. "But I only use it to–" "Actually if you just—" "The new models–" "I was making fun–" Stop. You're embarrassing yourself. I am embarrassed for you.

There is some mileage in the concept of being an AI vegan, but the thing that many vegans will find is that if they travel far enough, they'll find themselves in a country where they don't speak the language and can't explain their restrictions.

The Reg FOSS desk is not vegan, but has been strictly vegetarian for about 45 years now. Some of the vegans that we know personally become vegetarians when traveling far from home, because it's more practical. One way that you can sometimes get through to people whose culture doesn't have the notion of being vegetarian is to explain that it is a religious prohibition.

Here, we feel that Cate Sawers has nailed it. We suggest memorizing it, and as a fallback, print it out, laminate it, and keep it in your wallet:

I have a religious exemption from using all generative "A.I." I am not a member of the Silicon Valley sect. Their beliefs and practices are an affront to my sensibilities. The tech is trained on stolen intellectual property. The output is riddled with mistakes, and it is incapable of comprehending the weight of its errors. It is not even an "it." But sometimes, it is filtered and massaged by unaccountable human sweatshop workers and bad actors. I am not required to use "A.I." any more than I am required to join Amway, buy black market rhino horn, or attend the Fyre Festival. As a human, I have a duty and right to limit my carbon and water footprint and protect my fellow human. As a union worker, I have a duty and right to oppose tech that is used to threaten workers or cheapen our product. As a tech consumer, I have a duty and right to oppose scams that lower the quality of our tools. As a scholar, I have a duty and right to oppose anti-intellectualism. As a taxpayer, I have a duty and right to oppose the misallocation of public funds and data. As a grown-up, I have a duty and right to protect young people from predators. As a person with a conscience, I am appalled at the decadent disregard for user safety, the callous dismissal of responsibility for lives ruined and slaughtered. My religion is related to my identity, geography, and family, making it an irrelevant accident of birth. What matters is that I was born. I have an exemption from their digital rapture, their cultural austerity, their intellectual poverty. I practice wholesome hedonism and First Do No Harm.

Catherine Sawers 12/9/2025

Bravo! ®