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Expand Without Drifting
A closer look at the first of the three AI-intensification tendencies — and why awareness, not judgment, is what separates expansion from drift.
Last week, in Are We Doing It to Ourselves?, I wrote about the three tendencies UC Berkeley researchers found in their eight-month study of AI at work: task expansion, blurred boundaries, and more multitasking. Workers at a 200-person tech company took on more tasks, worked longer hours, and ran more AI threads in parallel. Much of it wasn’t asked of them — AI just made “more” feel possible, accessible, even rewarding.
This week, I want to ask something of you — about your own task expansion.
Have You Noticed Your Own?
Maybe you are drafting long, polished replies to emails that used to take three sentences.
Maybe you are building a small tool, a form, or a webpage yourself — something you would have hired someone to make.
Maybe you are researching a decision you would have made on instinct before.
Maybe you are writing more, publishing more, responding to more.
That’s task expansion. AI didn’t ask. It just quietly invited — and we said yes.
