🎮 The Next Input — Issue #163

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⚡ The Briefing — 60 sec

• Anthropic’s rise is giving some OpenAI investors second thoughts All that means for us as consumers is that we get amazing products. Really don’t care who wins. I’m having popcorn the entire time 🍿

• Anthropic readies Claude Opus 4.7 and AI design tool for launch BUT if they are in a war… Anthropic is not playing at all. 4.7 is likely to be incremental, but the broader move into design tooling says they are widening the battlefield.

• Bosses say AI boosts productivity – workers say they’re drowning in ‘workslop’ No matter which way the war above goes, one thing will never change: bosses don’t understand workers and workers stay under the pump.

🛠️ The Playbook — The AI Workslop Filter

Mission
Use AI to cut actual work, not create a fresh layer of synthetic busywork that makes leadership feel productive while teams quietly drown.

Difficulty
Intermediate

Build time
3–5 hours

ROI
Less fake productivity, better workflows, and a much clearer line between useful AI leverage and AI-generated admin sludge.

0) Why This Matters

The model war is fun to watch from the sidelines.

One company ships harder. Another raises more. Investors panic. Founders posture. Consumers get better products. Fine.

But the worker-level reality is different.

A lot of AI rollouts are not producing leverage. They are producing:

• more summaries

• more dashboards

• more reporting

• more “visibility”

• more layers between the worker and the actual work

That is how productivity theatre happens.

The smart play is not to ask, “Where else can we add AI?”

It is to ask:

• what work disappears

• what work gets faster

• what work gets clearer

• what new work is just slop wearing a blazer

1) Architecture

2) Workflow

1. Pick one workflow where AI has already been introduced or is about to be introduced.

2. Map the old process in plain English before touching the shiny new layer.

3. Identify which steps AI removes, which steps it speeds up, and which steps it adds.

4. Kill any new AI-generated step that does not clearly improve speed, quality, or clarity.

5. Keep human review only where judgment actually matters, not where the process got bloated.

6. Measure whether the workflow now feels lighter for the worker, not just cleaner for management.

3) Example Prompts

Workslop Detector

You are reviewing a workflow for AI-generated busywork.

For the process below:
- identify which steps create real value
- identify which steps are just extra summaries, reporting, or admin
- identify what should be removed immediately
- identify the top 5 signs of workslop

Process:
[insert workflow here]

Manager Reality Check

You are reviewing whether an AI rollout improves work or just improves optics.

Check:
- whether the worker has fewer steps
- whether leadership has added extra reporting
- whether the workflow is genuinely faster
- whether the output is being used or merely observed

Return:
1. biggest issue
2. biggest waste
3. one concrete fix

Worker Load Prompt

You are assessing the real impact of AI on the worker.

For the workflow below:
- identify what got easier
- identify what got more annoying
- identify where AI created new hidden labour
- recommend what to cut

Workflow:
[insert workflow]

Kill-the-Slop Prompt

You are ruthless about workflow quality.

Given the process below:
- remove anything redundant
- remove anything that exists only for visibility theatre
- keep only the steps that produce a materially better outcome

Return the leaner workflow in numbered steps.

4) Guardrails

• Never count extra summaries as a win by default.

• Do not add an AI layer unless a human layer can disappear.

• Track worker burden, not just management visibility.

• Kill workflows that produce more reading than action.

• Do not mistake cleaner reporting for better operations.

• If the user still feels crushed, the AI rollout did not work.

5) Pilot Rollout — 3 hours

1. Pick one AI-assisted workflow that staff already complain about.

2. Write down the before and after process side by side.

3. Highlight every new step AI introduced.

4. Remove the steps that do not improve outcome quality or reduce load.

5. Test the leaner version with 10 real tasks.

6. Keep only the version that reduces both effort and irritation.

6) Metrics

• Number of workflow steps removed

• Time saved per task

• Human review minutes added vs removed

• Output usage rate

• Worker frustration score

• Percentage of AI outputs acted on

• Number of AI-generated steps killed after review

Pro Tip: If AI creates three new layers of summaries so someone senior can feel informed, but the worker is still buried, that is not leverage. That is deluxe workslop.

🎯 The Arsenal — Tools & Platforms

• ChatGPT / Claude / Gemini · useful when they remove work, not when they create a fresh reporting stack · ChatGPT · Anthropic · Gemini

• Airtable · simple workflow map for spotting where AI added sludge instead of leverage · Airtable

• Google Sheets · fast scorecard for time saved, steps added, and slop removed · Google Sheets

• Anthropic’s next moves · the consumer takeaway is better products; the operator takeaway is that the tooling layer is expanding beyond pure chat.

• The Guardian’s workslop framing · a useful reminder that “AI productivity” and “worker experience” are often not the same thing.

Copy-paste prompt block:

You are helping me build an AI Workslop Filter.

For the workflow below:
1. map the original process
2. map the AI-assisted process
3. identify which steps were removed
4. identify which new steps AI added
5. identify which new steps are genuine leverage versus workslop
6. propose a leaner workflow
7. define success metrics

Workflow:
[insert workflow here]

Return the answer in markdown with sections for:
- Original workflow
- AI-assisted workflow
- Workslop detected
- Leaner workflow
- Risks
- Pilot rollout
- Metrics

💡 Free Office Hours

If your team has adopted AI but somehow ended up with more admin, more dashboards, and more noise, I run free office hours to help strip the slop out and get back to actual leverage.

Book here: https://calendly.com

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🕹️ Game Over

The model war is entertaining. Workslop is not. Enjoy the popcorn, then go cut the sludge.

— Aaron Automating the boring. Amplifying the brilliant.

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