AI-Generated "Workslop" Is Destroying Productivity

https://hbr.org/2025/09/ai-generated-workslop-is-destroying-productivity?mc_cid=4dc392fe29

by lastdong • 10 months ago

7 2 10 months ago

reify• 10 months ago

Unfortunately, this article pretends to be a writeup of a study, but it’s actually a promotional brochure for enterprise AI products.

It’s an unlabeled advertising feature.

The AI sales people who wrote this throw around numbers and percentages. Looks good, looks sciencey.

Then you go looking for the study these numbers came from. They didn’t run a study — they have an open quiz that’s still running. You can just put answers in right now, live. No screening, no attempt at getting a representative sample, none of this was done properly. [Survey]

https://stanforduniversity.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_4Mjwa0j...

The company is called BetterUp. They wrote this to sell you an AI product that turns your AI “passengers” into AI “pilots”! You just have to give them money.

Every GitHub Copilot bot commit is workslop. Every AI review is workslop. Every email where you wish they’d just sent the prompt instead is workslop.

The cause of workslop is not “passengers” — it’s workers being forced to use dumb garbage that doesn’t work.

The “passenger” label tries to blame the workers and not their bosses — who are 100% the parties to blame.

borrowed from:

https://circumstances.run/@davidgerard

scuff3d• 10 months ago

Thanks, I got a little into the article but bailed out after it started blaming workers. Makes sense they'd be blaming employees when they're trying to sell more shit to the bosses.

AI-Generated "Workslop" Is Destroying Productivity

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