"An Endless Stream of AI Slop": How Developers Discuss the Burden of AI-Assisted Software Development

[2603.27249] "An Endless Stream of AI Slop": How Developers Discuss the Burden of AI-Assisted Software Development Skip to main content Search Submit Donate Log in Computer Science > Software Engineering arXiv:2603.27249 (cs) [Submitted on 28 Mar 2026 ( v1 ), last revised 28 Aug 2026 (this version, v4)] Title: "An Endless Stream of AI Slop": How Developers Discuss the Burden of AI-Assisted Software Development Authors: Sebastian Baltes , Marc Cheong , Christoph Treude View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract: "AI slop", that is, low-quality AI-generated content, is increasingly affecting software development, from generated code and pull requests to documentation and bug reports. However, there is limited empirical research on how developers perceive and respond to this phenomenon. We qualitatively analyzed how developers discuss AI slop in 1,154 Reddit and Hacker News posts, developing a codebook of 15 codes organized into three thematic clusters: Review Friction (how AI slop burdens reviewers, erodes trust, and prompts countermeasures), Quality Degradation (damage to codebases, knowledge resources, and developer competence), and Forces and Consequences (systemic incentives, mandated adoption, craft erosion, and workforce disruption). Our findings frame AI slop as a tragedy of the commons, where individual productivity gains externalize costs onto reviewers, maintainers, and the broader community. We report the concerns developers raise and the mitigation strategies they propose, with implications for tool developers, team leads, and educators. Comments: 7 pages, 2 figures, 1 table Subjects: Software Engineering (cs.SE) Cite as: arXiv:2603.27249 [cs.SE] (or arXiv:2603.27249v4 [cs.SE] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2603.27249 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Submission history From: Sebastian Baltes [ view email ] [v1] Sat, 28 Mar 2026 11:50:53 UTC (67 KB) [v2] Tue, 9 Jun 2026 19:54:49 UTC (875 KB) [v3] Sat, 13 Jun 2026 05:01:26 UTC (958 KB) [v4] Fri, 28 Aug 2026 08:51:07 UTC (959 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View PDF HTML (experimental) TeX Source view license Current browse context: cs.SE < prev | next > new | recent | 2026-03 Change to browse by: cs References & Citations NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer ( What is the Explorer? ) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers ( What is Connected Papers? ) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps ( What is Litmaps? ) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations ( What are Smart Citations? ) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv ( What is alphaXiv? ) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers ( What is CatalyzeX? ) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub ( What is DagsHub? ) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub ( What is GotitPub? ) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face ( What is Huggingface? ) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast ( What is ScienceCast? ) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate ( What is Replicate? ) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces ( What is Spaces? ) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI ( What is TXYZ.AI? ) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower ( What are Influence Flowers? ) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender ( What is CORE? ) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs . Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax ( What is MathJax? ) We gratefully acknowledge support from our major funders , member institutions , and all contributors. About · Help · Contact · Subscribe · Copyright · Privacy · Accessibility · Operational Status (opens in new tab) Major funding support from

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