Slop Happens
by Claudio Luís Vera and Bianca Prins
Tech doesn’t always deliver, and that’s where things get weird. Slop Happens explores the messy side of innovation—from AI that hallucinates to decision engines that misfire — along with the ethics, errors, and hacks that shape our lives in the algorithmic age.
Episodes
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Flock cameras: If it's not the technology, then what?
Flock is trying, and succeeding, to become Google for cops. Flock Safety runs more than 100,000 license plate readers across the US. A small-town police department can rent them by subscription, then search the entire national network from a laptop: a license plate, a black SUV, even a protest...
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Meta Glasses: accessibility win or privacy fig leaf?
Meta donated 15,000 smart glasses to a disability organization in Ireland. Free devices. Independence for blind and low-vision users. Good press. Here's the catch: to use the AI features, you sign off on your privacy. German researchers found the recording indicator doesn't always show. And even...
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Predictive technologies: trained on the past, judging the future
In a past life, Claudio ran a web design boutique that always had the Magic 8-Ball on the conference table, consulted with total mock-seriousness whenever a decision got stuck. Turns out that's not a bad starting point for evaluating predictive AI. So — are today's algorithms that much better…
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Meta smart glasses: help for the blind or a surveillance tool?
For blind and low-vision users, smart glasses that can read a letter aloud or identify a package on sight are nothing short of transformative. But those benefits rely on a camera that’s always on, always recording, and always sending data somewhere. Combined with facial recognition, though, they...
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Paper, Trust, and Democracy
Your ballot is secret. Your donation history isn't. Your voter registration isn't. And in the age of algorithmic profiling, the data trail you leave before you vote may matter more than the vote itself. In this episode of Slop Happens, Bianca and Claudio dig into something that doesn't get enough...
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Elections and the art of blacklisting
In the age of AI, it’s easy to forget that it doesn’t take sophisticated tech to build an instrument of power. In the 2000s, Venezuela gave the world a masterclass on how a simple, flat database could turn a petition into a tool of repression. In this episode of Slop Happens, we unravel the dark...
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E2 - How "neutral" systems seem fair... until someone checks.
In this second episode of Slop Happens, Bianca Prins and Claudio Luís Vera welcome Maranke Wierenga, advisor on data-driven work and member of the NEN Commission on AI & Big Data, where she also chairs the Working Group on Ethics and Fundamental Rights. Together, they explore curious cases where...
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E1 Pilot - Space X
Claudio and Bianca welcome you to their new podcast, Slop Happens, and discuss the weirdness that happens when technology goes wrong. One evening, Claudio sees a trippy cloud with shining debris overhead. The next day, he discovers it was a SpaceX mission that exploded and rained debris down over...
About this show
Tech doesn’t always deliver, and that’s where things get weird. Slop Happens explores the messy side of innovation—from AI that hallucinates to decision engines that misfire — along with the ethics, errors, and hacks that shape our lives in the algorithmic age.
Hosted by
Claudio Luís Vera and Bianca Prins
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