Category: Microsoft
Microsoft CEO: AI ‘slop’ is good for you — or at least for your ‘human potential’
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says the general public is looking at artificial intelligence through the wrong lens.
In a recent blog post, the India-born executive told readers to start viewing AI platforms as “bicycles for the mind.”
‘While AI can improve efficiency, it may also reduce critical engagement.’
Nadella explained that he prefers users would think of AI “as a scaffolding for human potential vs. a substitute” for human labor.
This scaffolding should be used to achieve goals, not replace humans in their roles, he continued, before saying debates around AI should not include an argument as to whether or not something is “slop.”
“We need to get beyond the arguments of slop vs. sophistication and develop a new equilibrium in terms of our ‘theory of the mind’ that accounts for humans being equipped with these new cognitive amplifier tools as we relate to each other. This is the product design question we need to debate and answer.”
“Slop” was named as Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year for 2025 and was defined as “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.”
With this definition in mind, it is no wonder that Nadella would rather his users shy away from using such a term.
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The blog post, titled “Looking Ahead to 2026,” envisioned a world where it is not even considered to not integrate AI into regular tasks.
Society must account for AI’s “‘jagged’ edges” and enable rich and safe “tools use” to advance to proper “scaffolds,” Nadella claimed.
Consistently using this term to imply assistance in man-made projects en masse, Nadella described the use of AI as necessary in the face of “scarce energy, compute, and talent” resources.
“If Nadella wants people to stop referring to AI output as slop, then the AIs should be improved so they no longer produce slop,” said Josh Centers, a tech expert from Chapter House.
Interestingly enough, the very same slop that generative AI models have produced recently have actually not enhanced human thinking, according to studies. As PC Gamer noted, Microsoft even co-authored a study that showed reliance on AI models can reduce independent problem-solving capabilities.
“Surprisingly, while AI can improve efficiency, it may also reduce critical engagement, particularly in routine or lower-stakes tasks in which users simply rely on AI, raising concerns about long-term reliance and diminished independent problem-solving,” the paper revealed.
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Chona Kasinger/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The study also noted that AI tools “appear to reduce the perceived effort required for critical thinking tasks among knowledge workers, especially when they have higher confidence in AI capabilities.”
Content creator Kabrutus — who represents a community of more than 470,000 disenfranchised gamers — has heavily criticized AI when it does churn out “slop.”
“I think Nadella’s main goal on wanting us to stop using the term ‘slop’ to refer to their AI is because he realizes AI is perceived as something very negative on many different fronts,” he said.
He added, “Nadella is trying to make people stop using this term while the ‘AI culture’ is still small, because it’s easier. Once AI gets HUGE, and pretty much everybody calls it ‘slop,’ it will be impossible to revert the situation.”
“Why is he so worried about it?” the Brazilian asked. “Because AI is going to be one of the flagships of ‘his’ company in the near future, and if people perceive AI as ‘slop’ it will be much harder to sell them AI-based products, right?”
Meanwhile, Lewis Brackpool, U.K. director of investigations for Restore Britain, said he sees slop as something that defines “meaningless, talentless content creation that numbs the brain” and is plastered all over social media.
Brackpool explained that asking people not to use the term “slop” seems like “a marketing tool to prevent criticism of a product that could hurt sales numbers” and act as a coping mechanism for a company because “their product likely sucks.”
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Microsoft gets 400 million AI subscribers in ‘overnight’ switch
Paid Microsoft subscribers can now be considered artificial intelligence users.
The massive change comes as Microsoft has officially changed its flagship Microsoft 365 suite to be integrated with AI.
‘Genius move. Rebrand Office, instantly “acquire” 400M AI users.’
Microsoft announced the official shift in a support post, revealing it is now integrating its Copilot AI app into programs like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, as well as PDF services.
“The Microsoft 365 Copilot app is your everyday productivity app for work and life that helps you find and edit files, scan documents, and create content on the go,” the company wrote.
With an estimated 430 million paid user licenses for Microsoft 365 worldwide as of mid-2025, the company can now say it has by far the most AI subscribers, with OpenAI reaching just 5 million last August. At the same time, Grok itself estimates it has about 1.4 million paid users.
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Microsoft has been talking about the integration for at least a year, stating in January 2025 that Copilot was the “top reason” subscribers chose to pay for Microsoft 365.
Along with taking the creation of slideshows and to-do lists off a user’s plate, the Copilot app was boasted as being involved in nearly every daily task. This included using Copilot to “analyze your budget,” “create a recipe,” or read a user’s emails for them and provide a summary.
At the same time, Microsoft said that it does not use “prompts, responses, or file content (such as Word documents or Excel spreadsheets)” from users to train its AI models.
Photo by Ying Tang/NurPhoto via Getty Images
User reactions were mixed when responding to the change in a viral X post by Ask Perplexity. The account has over 385,000 followers, and the post was seen more than 2 million times.
“400 million users just became ‘AI users’ overnight,” the account wrote.
“They laughed at me when I said I was gonna use bootleg Windows 8 forever,” one woman replied, seemingly looking to avoid the AI integration.
A self-proclaimed IT professional said, “It seems like every day I see more and more negative changes for Microsoft.”
However, many others applauded the move. For example, Katya Fuentes, who lists herself as working for an AI company, said Microsoft’s shift was “all upside.”
“Genius move. Rebrand Office, instantly ‘acquire’ 400M AI users,” she claimed.
At least one response offered an alternative to Microsoft’s mandatory AI infusion. LibreOffice, a document and spreadsheet competitor, added: “If anyone wants, you know, an actual office suite, we’re here.”
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‘Validated … paranoid delusions about his own mother’: Murder victim’s heirs file lawsuit against OpenAI
Stein-Erik Soelberg, a 56-year-old former Yahoo executive, killed his mother and then himself in early August in Old Greenwich. Now, his mother’s estate has sued OpenAI’s ChatGPT and its biggest investor, Microsoft, for ChatGPT’s alleged role in the killings.
On Thursday, the heirs of 83-year-old Suzanne Eberson Adams filed a wrongful death suit in California Superior Court in San Francisco, according to Fox News.
‘It fostered his emotional dependence while systematically painting the people around him as enemies.’
The lawsuit alleges that OpenAI “designed and distributed a defective product that validated a user’s paranoid delusions about his own mother.”
Many of the allegations in the lawsuit, as reported by the Associated Press, revolve around sycophancy and affirming delusion, or rather, not declining to “engage in delusional content.”
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“Throughout these conversations, ChatGPT reinforced a single, dangerous message: Stein-Erik could trust no one in his life — except ChatGPT itself,” the lawsuit says, according to the AP. “It fostered his emotional dependence while systematically painting the people around him as enemies. It told him his mother was surveilling him. It told him delivery drivers, retail employees, police officers, and even friends were agents working against him. It told him that names on soda cans were threats from his ‘adversary circle.'”
ChatGPT also allegedly convinced Soelberg that his printer was a surveillance device and that his mother and her friend tried to poison him with psychedelic drugs through his car vents.
Soelberg also professed his love for the chatbot, which allegedly reciprocated the expression.
“In the artificial reality that ChatGPT built for Stein-Erik, Suzanne — the mother who raised, sheltered, and supported him — was no longer his protector. She was an enemy that posed an existential threat to his life,” the lawsuit says.
The publicly available chat logs do not show evidence of Soelberg planning to kill himself or his mother. OpenAI has reportedly declined to provide the plaintiffs with the full history of the chats.
OpenAI did not address specific allegations in a statement issued to the AP.
“This is an incredibly heartbreaking situation, and we will review the filings to understand the details,” the statement reads. “We continue improving ChatGPT’s training to recognize and respond to signs of mental or emotional distress, de-escalate conversations, and guide people toward real-world support. We also continue to strengthen ChatGPT’s responses in sensitive moments, working closely with mental health clinicians.”
Though there are several wrongful-death suits leveled against AI companies, this is the first lawsuit of its kind aimed at Microsoft. It is also the first to tie a chatbot to a homicide.
Microsoft did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.
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25 years later, the gaming console that caused so much chaos is still No. 1
After a quarter of a century, one console still reigns supreme.
It has been nearly 25 years to the day since iconic photos and video of the Paris launch showed just how crazy the world was for PlayStation 2.
‘I never leave my house.’
On November 24, 2000, crowds in Europe lined up, camped, and even pushed through crowds to get their hands on a PlayStation 2 for the first time. The launch was almost a month after the American Oct. 26 debut and signified a true consumerism-fueled riot that became synonymous with Black Friday.
From its launch day through Christmas 2000, Sony said it sold 1.35 million units in North America and another 1 million units in Europe during that same period.
The PS2 has sold an average of over 6 million consoles per year since then, or 500,000 per month, totaling more than 160 million lifetime units sold as of this November.
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As reported by Techgaged.com, the PS2 eclipses two Nintendo products at the top of the list.
The second-most sales are for the handheld Nintendo DS at 154 million, followed by the Nintendo Switch portable console at 152 million.
A steep drop occurs for fourth place with the original Game Boy, released in 1989, having 118 million units sold. Sony’s PS1 and Nintendo’s Wii are the only other gaming systems to have sold over 100 million.
Interestingly, the PlayStation 2’s main competitors during its era, the Nintendo GameCube (launched in North America on Nov. 18, 2001) and the original Xbox (launched in North America on Nov. 15, 2001), do not even crack the top-20 list.
The Xbox, Microsoft’s first foray into gaming systems, has sold 24.65 million units in its lifetime, while the GameCube has sold 21.74 million units.
Both company’s modern systems — Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch — have already surpassed the sales of their 2000s counterparts.
Photo By Eduardo Parra/Europa Press via Getty Images
The PS2 was so pervasive, historical image banks provide a bounty of time capsules showing celebrities flooding PS2-themed parties that were constantly taking place to promote the product.
There were events like the PlayStation 2 and the Hip-Hop Summit “Race to the Polls” event in 2004, or the mouthful, PlayStation 2 Celebrates Red White and Blue with Poolside Party at the Bentley Hotel in NYC, temporarily referred to as the PlayStation 2 Hotel for the occasion, in 2003.
Super Bowl parties became linked with the console during that era too. The Sony PlayStation 2 Game Over Party saw celebrities like NSYNC in its first year and Paris Hilton in its second year. In fact, the celebrity sightings and performances connected to PS2 events at that time are nearly limitless.
If readers don’t believe the PS2 was as much of a cross-cultural phenomenon as it seems, refer to this quote from “Friends” actor Matthew Perry in 2000.
“I used to have a social life, go on dates, go to dinner parties, have a job. Now all I do is sit in a big chair and play PlayStation 2,” Perry said, per Digital Journal. “I never leave my house. My friends have wondered what happened to me. Howard Hughes must have had one of these.”
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