You Don’t Have to Keep Up with AI
Source: Mike Kentz Substack
Author: Mike Kentz
Original source: https://mikekentz.substack.com/p/you-dont-have-to-keep-up-with-ai
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Summary
Mike Kentz identifies a phenomenon he calls “latency guilt”: the pressure users feel to match AI’s speed during brainstorming or collaborative interaction. Even when users are not outsourcing their thinking, AI can produce so many ideas so quickly that humans skim, rush, and lose track of whether the work is accurate, useful, or still their own. Kentz connects this pressure to FOMO, loss aversion, social threat responses, and the mismatch between human cognition and machine speed. He concludes that responsible AI use requires slowing down, noticing anxiety or compulsive forward motion, and remembering that the AI can wait.
Big ideas
- Learning still needs some struggle, even when AI can make things easier
- Students need to bring the purpose; AI should not supply it for them
- AI simulations need clear boundaries for learning
Claims
- Students need boundaries for when to use AI and when to step back
- AI speed can make people feel guilty for thinking slowly
Key evidence and examples
- Kentz quotes the idea that AI answers immediately and users adjust their tempo to match.
- Examples include charts, plans, essays, email drafts, and ideas arriving faster than the user can evaluate them.
- Latency guilt is defined as the feeling that humans are the bottleneck and must keep up with AI’s speed.
- Practical advice includes pausing, noticing the pull, distinguishing curiosity from anxiety, building friction, and remembering that the AI will wait.
Education relevance
Highly relevant for student AI literacy, metacognition, writing instruction, faculty development, attention, and responsible use norms.