This post on HBR defines “Workslop” – AI-Generated “Workslop” Is Destroying Productivity. I like the term and definitely have felt the pointy end of it:
On social media, which is increasingly clogged with low-quality AI-generated posts, this content is often referred to as “AI slop.” In the context of work, we refer to this phenomenon as “workslop.” We define workslop as AI generated work content that masquerades as good work, but lacks the substance to meaningfully advance a given task.
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The insidious effect of workslop is that it shifts the burden of the work downstream, requiring the receiver to interpret, correct, or redo the work. In other words, it transfers the effort from creator to receiver.
Kate Niederhoffer, Gabriella Rosen Kellerman, Angela Lee, Alex Liebscher, Kristina Rapuano and Jeffrey T. Hancock in AI-Generated “Workslop” Is Destroying Productivity
From their survey some of the interesting bits they pull out about the cost:
- The reported time spent dealing with workslop is 1 hour 56 minutes per instance.
- “When we asked participants in our study how it feels to receive workslop, 53% report being annoyed, 38% confused, and 22% offended.”
- “Approximately half of the people we surveyed viewed colleagues who sent workslop as less creative, capable, and reliable than they did before receiving the output. 42% saw them as less trustworthy, and 37% saw that colleague as less intelligent.”
- “One third of people (32%) who have received workslop report being less likely to want to work with the sender again in the future.”
Ouch! 😬
I think I’ll be pointing to this article in future when I need to help some realise that lazy communication is unfair to the person who has to receive what you’ve communicated and make sense of it.
