AI Creep Is Real
Source: Mike Kentz Substack
Author: Mike Kentz
Original source: https://mikekentz.substack.com/p/ai-creep-is-real
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Summary
Mike Kentz describes “AI creep” as the gradual expansion of AI use from focused assistance into scattered, exhausting, always-on work. He begins with his own shift from one ChatGPT window to multiple Claude Projects and connects that experience to research on “AI brain fry,” adverse productivity effects, task expansion, blurred work-life boundaries, and cognitive overload. Kentz argues that the problem is not AI itself but the absence of structures, pauses, norms, and reflection. His AI Journal and team-level AI Pulse are presented as tools for creating metacognitive speed bumps before and after AI use.
Big ideas
- Students need to bring the purpose; AI should not supply it for them
- Learning still needs some struggle, even when AI can make things easier
- AI literacy should help people notice how AI changes what counts as knowing
- Schools should start with learning values before choosing AI tools
- AI is changing what knowledge work asks people to do
Claims
- Students need boundaries for when to use AI and when to step back
- AI speed can make people feel guilty for thinking slowly
- Learning requires some productive struggle that AI can remove
- AI adoption in schools is mostly a people-change problem
Key evidence and examples
- Kentz describes one ChatGPT window becoming three Claude Projects and then six simultaneous AI workstreams.
- He cites “brain fry” as cognitive overload from managing too many AI threads rather than from deep work.
- Patterns include task expansion, blurred boundaries, and cognitive overload despite users feeling more productive.
- The AI Journal uses pre-session and post-session questions; AI Pulse extends the reflection structure to teams.
Education relevance
Highly relevant for AI literacy, student and teacher metacognition, professional learning, organizational norms, workload management, and treating AI sessions as bounded reflective events.