Artificial intelligence not only makes work easier, but it also has a downside: a large study shows that employees waste their time, reduce efficiency and motivation due to the «AI garbage» produced by their colleagues.
Artificial intelligence not only makes work easier, but it also has a downside: a large study shows that employees waste their time, reduce efficiency and motivation due to the «AI garbage» produced by their colleagues.
As Axios writes, the term Workslop (one of the meanings of the word «slop» — slop — ed.) was introduced by Harvard Business Review researchers and describes low-quality content created by artificial intelligence — memos, reports, emails.
«Workslop looks polished, but it lacks real substance. You can recall the feeling of confusion after opening such a document, and then a feeling of disappointment. You begin to wonder if the sender simply used artificial intelligence to generate large blocks of text, instead of thinking everything through carefully,» the publication quotes researchers from Stanford University.
In August and September, researchers surveyed 1,150 American adults who described themselves as office workers about their experiences with Workslop, or «work slop.»
40% of those surveyed said they had encountered this within the last month, and it slowed down their workday.
«Such 'scum' entail real costs — taking into account the average salary of respondents, researchers estimate these workplace costs at $186 per month,» the authors of the material note.
It is claimed that for a large organization this could result in a loss of over $9 million per year, according to rough calculations by the aforementioned researchers.
When asked how they felt about the «AI scum,» more than half of respondents said they were annoyed, 38% were confused, and 22% were offended.
At the same time, colleagues also looked down on the senders of such «scum», that is, their colleagues or partners — approximately half of all respondents considered them less creative, capable, and reliable.
At the same time, along with the negatives in the workplace, AI allows for significant advances in science. For example, European scientists have developed a new artificial intelligence tool, Delphi-2M, which can predict personal risk of developing over 1,000 diseases and predict changes in health 10 years in advance.
