<
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/apr/14/ai-productivity-workplace-errors>
"Ken, a copywriter for a large, Miami-based cybersecurity firm, used to enjoy
his job. But then the “workslop” started piling up.
Workslop is an unintended consequence of the AI boom. It’s what happens when
employees use AI to quickly generate work that seems polished – at least
superficially – but is in fact so flawed or inaccurate that it needs to be
heavily corrected, cleaned up or even completely redone after it’s passed on to
colleagues.
For Ken, the problem started after his company’s CEO laid off several of his
colleagues and mandated that remaining workers use AI chatbots, saying it would
boost their productivity. While initial drafts were a breeze to create, Ken and
his co-workers had to spend more time rewriting, correcting errors and
resolving disagreements between each other’s chatbots than if they had never
used AI at all.
“Quality decreased significantly, time to produce a piece of content increased
significantly and, most importantly, morale decreased,” said the copywriter,
who spoke under a pseudonym for fear of losing his job. “Everything got a whole
lot worse once they rolled out AI.” Ken said the company’s executives shifted
the blame to staff when they pushed back about AI-fueled productivity
decreases.
Ken’s experience reflects an emerging divide between employees and their
leaders when it comes to AI: a recent survey of 5,000 white-collar US workers
found that 40% of non-managers say AI saves them no time at all at work, while
92% of high-level executives say it makes them more productive.
So what’s causing this workslop deluge? The answer is more complex than being
simply a case of workers cutting corners. The real driving force connects back
to the C-suite.
Companies have spent billions on enterprise investment in generative AI. Some
of them, like Block, Amazon, Dow, UPS, Pinterest and Target, have laid off
human workers at the same time, attributing the cuts to AI’s potential
productivity. Workers who remain feel pressured by their employers to use AI to
produce more work, often with little guidance or training. A disconnect
separates executives giddy about generative AI from workers – who are finding
that AI merely makes their jobs harder.
“People are being told to use AI, often without direction or support,” said
Jeff Hancock, a co-author of the study that coined the term “workslop”, and a
Stanford researcher and BetterUp scientific adviser. While Hancock believes
that generative AI could eventually power tools that help workers improve
efficiency, in many cases, the incorporation of AI is having the opposite
effect."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
