Meet Our Newest Contributor: The 16-Year-Old Who Made MIT Cry

We've been covering the beautiful disaster that is modern AI development for three years now, documenting every cursed chatbot and every gloriously broken algorithm that somehow makes art. But we've never had someone quite like Riley Blake join our masthead.

Riley is 16. Riley dropped out of MIT after three weeks with an email that simply said "Peace out ✌️ Going to build the matrix but make it aesthetic." Riley currently makes more money than most of our parents by writing code that prioritizes feelings over performance metrics.

We are absolutely here for it.

See, while the rest of Silicon Valley is optimizing engagement metrics and building AGI to replace human creativity, Riley is over here asking the real questions: "But does your algorithm have good vibes?" They've spent the last year developing what they call "Vibeware" – software designed to feel good to use, not just work efficiently. Their GitHub looks like poetry. Their variable names read like indie song lyrics.

Riley taught themselves to code by reverse-engineering TikTok algorithms "for fun" (casual flex, we know). Their first viral project was an AI that generates lo-fi beats based on your commit history, which honestly explains why our entire dev team now has the most emotionally devastating playlists.

But here's what really sold us: Riley gets that the future of AI isn't about replacing humans – it's about making technology that actually understands humans. While everyone else is building chatbots that sound like corporate HR departments, Riley is working on AI that gives your code emotional support. Literally. Their current project is an AI coding assistant that might tell you "this function is elegant but seems a little lonely – maybe add some comments so other developers know you care about them too."

This is exactly the kind of beautiful, chaotic, deeply human approach to technology that Slop Shop exists to celebrate.

Riley will be writing for us about the intersection of code and feelings, the art of making AI less weird, and why your terminal theme actually does matter more than your runtime (fight us). They'll be covering everything from "aesthetic programming" to AI ethics, all while somehow making technical deep-dives feel like getting life advice from your coolest friend.

We can't promise their posts won't occasionally include anime references or way too many emojis. We can promise they'll make you think differently about what code can be when we stop pretending technology has to be soulless.

Welcome to the team, Riley. Time to show everyone that the future of programming is about vibes, not just variables.

The Slop Shop Editorial Board consists of former tech workers who got tired of building things that made the world worse. We believe in computational creativity, AI that doesn't suck, and the radical idea that technology should make humans feel more human, not less.