Fwd: Slop Conference Panel Flow: The Thought Leadership Wasteland - TOMORROW, 26 Feb, 10 am GMT
Ashish Kothari
Hi everyone,
I'm writing to share what should be an exciting session.
Tomorrow, February 26, marks Day 1 of The Slop Conference, a 3-day virtual event hosted by Belongg and Sinceriti exploring one of the most important and under-discussed challenges of our time: the flood of AI-generated content that sounds credible, looks polished, and offers no real substance. From hiring to thought leadership to venture capital, this is quietly eroding institutional trust and burying authentic voices in noise.
I'll be speaking on the panel "The Thought Leadership Wasteland: When Everyone's an Expert" (3:30 PM - 5:00 PM IST), alongside Syed Nazakat (Founder & CEO, DataLEADS; board member of the Global Investigative Journalism Network; coordinator of the Shakti Collective that brought together 300+ journalists during India's 2024 elections to combat AI-generated misinformation) and Dr. Sharon Barnhardt (Director of Research, Centre for Social and Behaviour Change at Ashoka University; Harvard PhD; co-author with Nobel laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo).
Our conversation will explore what happens when AI makes it trivially easy for anyone to produce authoritative-sounding content about things they don't deeply understand. We'll discuss who gets crowded out (particularly grassroots and non-dominant knowledge systems), the behavioral mechanics of why we fall for polished hollowness, and what a healthier ecosystem for genuine expertise might look like. These are questions close to my heart given my work with Kalpavriksh, Vikalp Sangam, and the Global Tapestry of Alternatives over the past four decades.
The full Day 1 lineup also includes panels on the history of performative communication (with Dr. Peggy Mohan, Dr. Sundar Sarukkai, Santosh Desai, and Dr. Rukmini Bhaya Nair), AI's impact on venture capital pitching, and the hiring crisis created by AI-generated applications.
The conference is completely free and all recordings will be permanently accessible.
Register here: https://luma.com/xay5if4z
I'd love to see some of you there.
Warmly, Ashish
Ashish Kothari Apt 5 Shree Datta Krupa 908 Deccan Gymkhana Pune 411004, India https://ashishkothari.in