Hyperstition Unslop AI fiction writing contest
The Common Reader announces the 2026 Hyperstition Unslop AI Fiction Writing Contest, inviting entries that use large language models to produce literary fiction deliberately free of "slop"—low-quality, generic AI-generated content. The contest aims to explore creative, non-generic uses of AI in storytelling.
Background
- *Hyperstition* is a blend of "superstition" and "fiction"; it refers to ideas or narratives that, through their own telling, help bring about the reality they describe (self-fulfilling fictions). The term was popularized by the late British philosopher Nick Land and the CCRU collective.
- *Unslop* is a play on "unslop"—a term used in AI circles to mean the process of cleaning up or filtering out low-quality, generic AI-generated content ("slop").
- This is a fiction-writing contest (2026) that explicitly asks for stories engaging with AI, hyperstition, and the idea of escaping or improving upon "slop" culture—i.e., the flood of mediocre, machine-produced text flooding the internet.
- The contest likely reflects a growing anxiety and fascination among writers and tech thinkers about AI's impact on creativity, originality, and meaning in literature.
- The sponsor or context is *The Common Reader*, a literary publication, so the contest sits at the intersection of literary fiction, tech criticism, and speculative/philosophical writing.