'Workslop' Flying Around: Tech Leaders Who Once Embraced AI Are Starting to Hit the Brakes
Summary
Fortune reports that tech leaders who once touted AI as the key to unlocking employee potential are changing their tune. Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke now criticizes staff for passing along unchecked AI emails and code as 'junk grenades,' while Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn has walked back his 'AI-first' rhetoric, admitting roughly 20% of AI output at scale is junk. A survey of 962 US full-time office workers by BetterUp Labs and Stanford's Social Media Lab found 52.7% had sent AI 'workslop' to colleagues and 38% had received it, spending 3.4 hours a month fixing it.
Bubble analysis
This story is about how well AI actually works in office settings, not about AI investment, valuations or capex, so it bears only indirectly on the bubble question. Still, it offers a soft signal: if firms find AI output needs heavy rework and productivity gains fall short of expectations, the revenue-return logic underpinning massive AI capex comes into question.
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