shared/references/ai-slop-taxonomy.md

# AI Slop Taxonomy

AI slop is a failure of intention, hierarchy, specificity, or craft

Do not ban an aesthetic merely because image models often misuse it

Classify what is wrong and remove only what lacks a job

## Family 1: Concept slop

Signals

- the concept is only adjectives such as premium, futuristic, cinematic, bold, or elegant
- the visual idea disappears when effects are removed
- generic metaphor unrelated to the product or audience
- category cliché used without a specific twist
- copied reference behavior with no adaptation to the current message

Critical when the style stack is effectively the entire idea

## Family 2: Composition slop

Signals

- everything centered by default
- equal visual emphasis across hero, copy, logo, and decoration
- floating fragments around a centered object without relational logic
- random diagonal placement used only to make the frame feel active
- weak or conflicting alignment anchors
- accidental tangencies and near-miss spacing
- empty areas that do not support text, balance, pacing, or focus

## Family 3: Effect-stack slop

Signals

- glow plus particles plus smoke plus lens flare plus holographic treatment
- several depth effects doing the same job
- dramatic rim light without a motivated source
- decorative speed lines, streaks, sparks, or dust with no motion or atmosphere reason

Every effect must pass the effect-job test

## Family 4: Material slop

Signals

- glass, chrome, liquid metal, translucent plastic, and glossy gradients mixed without material logic
- product finish altered to match a trendy aesthetic
- reflections inconsistent with the environment
- generic glossy 3D applied to unrelated objects

## Family 5: Typography slop

Signals

- fake microcopy or unreadable pseudo-labels
- too many type roles
- arbitrary tiny uppercase labels
- malformed Arabic
- forced Arabic tracking
- decorative English inserted into Arabic work without a communication job
- every line using a different treatment
- text placed wherever the generator left empty space

## Family 6: Photography slop

Signals

- plastic skin
- over-sharpened pores and textures
- extreme depth of field used everywhere
- cyan-orange grade with no scene reason
- impossible perfect symmetry in a natural moment
- generic smiling stock behavior
- physically inconsistent hands, props, reflections, or shadows

## Family 7: Decorative UI slop

Signals

- fake dashboards in non-product contexts
- floating glass cards behind every text group
- meaningless charts, pills, badges, percentages, or interface labels
- interface decoration that pretends to be evidence

## Family 8: 3D-object slop

Signals

- floating spheres, rings, ribbons, cubes, icons, or blobs with no concept role
- random bevel and extrusion used as decoration
- miniature objects scattered around a hero simply to fill space

## Family 9: Brand slop

Signals

- brand reduced to a logo plus color wash
- generic category visual that could belong to many competitors
- unofficial visual rules invented from one logo
- brand marks redrawn, distorted, reflected, embossed, or integrated into surfaces without permission

## Family 10: Detail entropy

Signals

- repeated meaningless texture
- tiny symbols and pseudo-writing
- noisy backgrounds with no focal support
- identical micro-elements repeated at suspicious regularity
- detail density that increases toward no meaningful target

## Severity

### Critical
Blocks release immediately

Examples: concept replaced by effect stack, malformed primary Arabic copy, wrong supplied product identity, broken hero anatomy, severe brand-mark corruption

### Major
Materially weakens hierarchy, credibility, specificity, or craft

Two majors block release

### Minor
Localized defect that does not change the idea

Four minors block release

## Slop pressure score

For review bookkeeping

- minor = 1
- major = 3
- critical = automatic veto

A total pressure score of 6 or more also blocks release even if no individual family crosses the count threshold

This catches several medium-strength generic behaviors accumulating into one synthetic-looking result

## Reduction behavior

Do not blindly remove 30 percent of everything

Remove in this order

1. effects with no job
2. duplicated supporting objects
3. redundant containers and labels
4. competing accents
5. microdetail that does not survive normal viewing size
6. secondary style families

Stop when hierarchy becomes clearer and the concept still has enough evidence