AI has created a new type of burnout. A Silicon Valley therapist explains how to deal with it
Artificial intelligence allows you to manage multiple projects at once, learn new skills faster, and take on work that previously had to be delegated. But there is a downside: AI does not get tired and does not signal that the workday is over. You have to stop yourself.
This was told to Business Insider by Nick Sanchez, a licensed family therapist from California and founder of Silicon Valley Therapy, who works primarily with entrepreneurs, executives, and other high-performing professionals in the technology industry.
He says that about 99% of his clients cite burnout as a major problem. Recently, he has increasingly seen AI burnout, a condition where AI capabilities force a person to take on even more work.
Artificial intelligence allows you to manage multiple projects at once, learn new skills faster, and take on work that previously had to be delegated. But there is a downside: AI does not get tired and does not signal that the workday is over. You have to stop yourself.
This was told to Business Insider by Nick Sanchez, a licensed family therapist from California and founder of Silicon Valley Therapy, who works primarily with entrepreneurs, executives, and other high-performing professionals in the technology industry.
He says that about 99% of his clients cite burnout as a major problem. Recently, he has increasingly seen AI burnout, a condition where AI capabilities force a person to take on even more work.
AI doesn’t make you work less — it lets you work more
Sanchez, in an article for Business Insider, notes that the advice to «just work less» hardly works for such people. They don’t want to reduce their workload — on the contrary, they want to work more efficiently.
AI only reinforces this trend. You can work on multiple products at the same time, use different LLMs and AI agents, quickly switch between tasks, and do things that previously required the participation of other people.
The therapist himself says he also experienced AI burnout while growing his own business. «AI has increased my ability to create better work and take on roles that previously would have had to be delegated,» he said.
The problem is that as productivity increases, so does the number of things a person is trying to do at the same time.
Four or five projects instead of one
A separate problem isfragmentation of attention.
Sanchez says his clients often try to work on four or five projects at once. AI makes this technically possible: while one model generates code, another analyzes documents, and a third helps prepare a presentation or research.
But the human brain is not necessarily adapted to such a regime.
«I don’t even know if we should be working like this,» the therapist notes.
As a result, a person may be constantly busy, but at the same time lose the ability to concentrate on one task and enjoy work.
Treat burnout, not just avoid it
Sanchez uses exposure therapy techniques in her work. The idea is to not require the person to drastically change the behavior they are used to.
For example, he doesn’t advise an entrepreneur on the verge of burnout to immediately take two weeks of vacation, turn off their phone, and forget about work completely.
Instead, you can start with an hour of walking or lunch without work. If even an hour seems unrealistic, try 30 minutes or 15.
When a person sees that their day is going better after a break, they are motivated to continue.
The therapist suggests applying the same principle to attention fragmentation: if a person is simultaneously managing six projects, first reduce them to two and see how productivity changes.
AI is already being used by psychotherapists' clients themselves
At the same time, Sanchez doesn’t see AI as the only source of problems. He says clients are already using ChatGPT and other AI tools to find journal questions, breathing exercises, and other simple practices.
The psychotherapist considers this a positive phenomenon: AI can help a person deal with superficial issues, and during the therapy session itself, there is more space for a deep conversation with a specialist.
And here arises the paradox of the AI era: technologies that allow us to do more in the same time can simultaneously create the feeling that we need to do even more.
Therefore, the main skill may not be the ability to make AI work even faster, but the ability to tell yourself in time that enough is enough for today.
«Чи є у мене талант, якщо комп’ютер може імітувати мене?». Штучний інтелект пише книги авторам Amazon Kindle. The Verge поспілкувався з авторами та виявив багато цікавого
Письменники-романісти використовують штучний інтелект для створення своїх творів. Видання про технології The Verge поспілкувалося з письменницею Дженніфер Лепп, яка випускає нову книгу кожні дев’ять тижнів, й дізналося про те, як працює штучний інтелект для написання романів. Наводимо адаптований переклад статті.
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