The word “slop” was a good choice to talk about the mass of code generated by AI. I think it resonates with non-tech people and it conveys disgust. It’s clear that we should avoid slop.

“Technical debt” never hooked management in the same way and we have found it hard to convince them that it needs to be addressed. Debt in general is something that can be a problem, but doesn’t need to be avoided or addressed until it is a problem so the can is kicked down the road.

Technical debt is a indefinable quantity which makes it very prone to be abused to mean "I wish I could rewrite this in [insert some fashionable language, framework or coding style]".

AI slop is an easier concept to quantify. It's basically the code for which insufficient people in the organisation have a meaningful understanding of how it works or what it does.