“Brain rot” – the named Oxford Word of the Year 2024 – is defined as the deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, as the result of overconsumption of material considered to be trivial or unchallenging.

Dr Valeria Sadovykh accurately discussed this topic with me on The CEO Retort Podcast several weeks prior to this announcement. It shows the rapid rise of this dangerous trend.

Yes, it is dangerous — why?

Because modern politics and business are becoming more driven by grift, as we have seen with crypto and (to my horror) AI, and people believe it.

Even CEOs – who do know better – are starting to sound more like tech bros and grifters, and I’ve been calling them out for it several months ago and will continue to do so.

Now we are seeing the rise of slop all over the web — a soup of divisive politics, misinformation, misogyny, anti-science, snake-oil grift of garbage. This is the future of the web!

Oh, BTW — slop is one of the runner-up words of the year for 2024. Who could’ve thunk it 🤓

It is concerning to see how much of this political and tech-bro slop has infiltrated my beloved tech sector, with the MAGA movement aiming to influence and control the future of AI and tech as a whole – I discussed this back in August 2024 on the podcast.

As someone deeply involved in this field, I assure you that the consequences are catastrophic—have a look at my past predictions and see for yourselves. I am sad and angry that I was proven right. So why aren’t people listening?

Whether you like it or not (I certainly don’t) we have to get political in order to ensure a positive future of AI and its impact on people’s lives.

My team and I at my company Nebuli are exploring various options to push harder toward responsible AI deployments and help organisations be more in control of their own regulatory frameworks and innovation destiny.

Stop waiting for governments or whoever to regulate — do it yourself!

In a personal capacity, I relaunched The CEO Retort podcast and journal to go beyond just AI and challenge the toxic and misleading narratives that are being pushed to the public by the grifters under the guise of “innovation” or “better future” or – condescendingly – “freedom”.

Not to mention, the manosphere is becoming more aggressively anti-women and is also becoming far too influential in the world of tech and AI.

The bottom line, as I’ve been stating throughout 2024, is that we are on our own. So, it is up to each one of us to take action and collectively make the world a better place. For real this time.

Enough cliches. Get it done!