New Term for Low-Quality AI Work
Researchers from BetterUp Labs, in collaboration with the Stanford Social Media Lab, have introduced a term to characterize subpar AI-generated content: “workslop.”
Defined in a recent article in the Harvard Business Review, workslop refers to “AI generated work content that masquerades as good work, but lacks the substance to meaningfully advance a given task.”
The Impact of Workslop on Organizations
The findings suggest that workslop may help explain why 95% of organizations experimenting with AI report no return on their investment. The researchers note that workslop can often be “unhelpful, incomplete, or missing crucial context,” leading to additional work for others.
“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,” the researchers explain.
Survey Insights
An ongoing survey of 1,150 full-time employees based in the U.S. found that 40% of respondents indicated they had encountered workslop within the last month.
Guidelines for Leaders
To mitigate the issue, the researchers recommend that workplace leaders should “model thoughtful AI use that has purpose and intention” while also “setting clear guardrails for your teams around norms and acceptable use.”
