A software professional reports becoming less able to concentrate on workplace documents that show what they perceive as strong signs of low-effort AI generation. They describe rereading such material without absorbing it, then asking senders questions already answered in the documents. Examples include a design document using Claude-like phrasing, a 20-page marketing deck that combines strategy with implausible technical jargon, and a verbose requirements document that resembles uncertain internal reasoning. The writer says AI-generated workplace text can be recognizable through distinctive wording, sentence flow, excessive verbosity, and efforts to portray routine details as major breakthroughs. They disagree with research suggesting people generally cannot reliably identify AI-generated text, arguing that low-effort output is easier to spot. They compare their reaction to banner blindness: repeated exposure to AI-generated LinkedIn posts, emails, and websites that they consider wordy but lacking meaning has trained them to mentally filter similar material. The writer says this filtering creates an unexpected productivity cost, because AI tools intended to improve efficiency can instead make them disengage from documents. They also recount noticing an apparently AI-generated restaurant image on the Baltic coast that seemed to depict moldy quiche.

Cognitive overload occurs during the review of AI-generated code, despite following good practices like planning, breaking tasks into phases, and implementing small changes. The increasing speed of AI implementation shifts the bottleneck to the volume of code that requires review.