AI brain fry
noun
BCG’s name for the exhaustion of approving fluent machine output all day: more mistakes, more decision fatigue, and a strong urge to lie down. It peaks, unhelpfully, in the people juggling the most tools at once.
Also known as AI-induced cognitive exhaustion
AI brain fry is the cognitive exhaustion that arrives when you spend too long monitoring, correcting and approving fluent machine output. The machine produces another page instantly; the person checking it still has one brain, one working day and a coffee that went cold twenty minutes ago. The danger is not merely feeling tired. Once attention frays, mistakes slip through and decisions get worse, and adding another AI tool to the pile does not add another supply of judgement. It sits beside botsitting because it names the cost hidden inside the productivity claim: speed at the front of the process becomes fatigue at the back, and a useful system counts both.
See also Botsitting Cognitive debt Cultural debt