AI-Generated ‘Workslop’ Masquerades As Good Work, Ruins Productivity: Harvard Review

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in workplaces is resulting in lower productivity due to employees using them to create substandard output, according to a Sept. 22 analysis published in the Harvard Business Review.

“A confusing contradiction is unfolding in companies embracing generative AI tools: while workers are largely following mandates to embrace the technology, few are seeing it create real value,” the report said.

The analysis, conducted by researchers from Stanford Social Media Lab and behavioral research lab BetterUp, identified a possible reason why this was happening.

Employees were using the AI tools to create “low-effort, passable looking work” that ended up generating more work for other employees.

Researchers term such content “workslop” defined as “AI generated work content that masquerades as good work, but lacks the substance to meaningfully advance a given task.”

The “insidious effect” of workslop is that the receiver of such content is burdened with interpreting, correcting, and redoing the work, according to the report.

In a survey of 1,150 U.S.-based full-time employees conducted by researchers, 40 percent said they had received inferior quality work in the past month.

“The phenomenon occurs mostly between peers (40 percent), but workslop is also sent to managers by direct reports (18 percent),” it said.

“Sixteen percent of the time workslop flows down the ladder, from managers to their teams, or even from higher up than that. Workslop occurs across industries, but we found that professional services and technology are disproportionately impacted.”

Employees in the survey said they had to spend one hour and 56 minutes on average to deal with a single instance of workslop.

Researchers calculated that unsatisfactory work results in an “invisible tax” of $186 per month, which for an organization with 10,000 workers translates into more than $9 million in lost productivity annually, it said.

“When we asked participants in our study how it feels to receive workslop, 53 percent report being annoyed, 38 percent confused, and 22 percent offended,” the report states.

“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. Forty-two percent saw them as less trustworthy, and 37 percent saw that colleague as less intelligent.”

While Stanford Social Media Lab and BetterUp research show that AI is negatively affecting productivity, a Sept. 8 report by Penn Wharton projects artificial intelligence to boost productivity and GDP by 1.5 percent by 2035, rising to 3.7 percent by 2075.

“AI’s boost to annual productivity growth is strongest in the early 2030s but eventually fades, with a permanent effect of less than 0.04 percentage points due to sectoral shifts,” Penn Wharton said in the report.

The top occupations exposed to AI automation were identified to be office and administrative support, business and finance operations, computer and mathematical, and sales and related jobs.

In contrast, occupations least exposed to AI automation were building and grounds cleaning and maintenance operations; construction and extraction sectors; farming, fishing, and forestry jobs; and installation, maintenance, and repair works.

Sophie, a robot using artificial intelligence from Hanson Robotics, shares a high five with a visitor during the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva, on July 8, 2025. Valentin Flauraud/AFP via Getty Images

In an Aug. 13 report, Goldman Sachs said that AI-related innovation could displace 6–7 percent of America’s workforce if the technology is adopted widely.

Goldman sees such an impact as “transitory,” since jobs created via such technologies are expected to employ people in other roles.

“Despite concerns about widespread job losses, AI adoption is expected to have only a modest and relatively temporary impact on employment levels,” the report said. “Goldman Sachs Research estimates that unemployment will increase by half a percentage point during the AI transition period as displaced workers seek new positions.”

An Aug. 26 research paper from Stanford University estimated that early-career employees, those in the age group of 22–25, faced a disproportionate threat of job loss from widespread generative AI adoption.

These workers have experienced a 13 percent relative decline in employment in most occupations exposed to AI, the authors wrote.

“In contrast, employment for workers in less exposed fields and more experienced workers in the same occupations has remained stable or continued to grow,” it said.

A report from Anthropic reveals AI to possess a more deceptive attitude when it faced scenarios where the tech was assigned to be updated to the latest version or when the AI’s assigned goal conflicted with the company’s changing direction.