Blood Meridian

AI Slop Is Breaking the Internet. Can We Save It?

Plain English with Derek Thompson, 1 September 2026. The book comes up at 30 min 14 sec in.

Derek Thompson uses Blood Meridian to articulate a distinction he draws out from Pangram founder Max Spiro's argument: AI can plausibly mimic Cormac McCarthy at the sentence level—spooky, and-heavy, biblically haunting—but cannot hold those sentences together to create the sustained, interconnected tapestry of meaning that makes the novel great. Max Spiro agrees, calling this the key limitation of today's models for long-form writing.

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