AI 过度使用引发“脑疲劳”。AI 正在悄悄改变职场，也在悄悄消耗我们的精力。研究发现，职场过度使用AI会引发AI脑过载（AI brain fry），尤其高发于高效员工与营销、开发、HR、财务、IT等岗位。
阅读下列短文，从每题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中，选出最佳选项。
It’s looking more and more like using AI to churn out work can take a considerable toll on your mental health, despite the tech’s promises of easing workloads. The latest research to illustrate this grim trend: a survey of nearly 1,500 full time US workers, which found that an alarming proportion of employees who constantly use AI at work to push their productivity past their normal capacity are becoming fatigued, as the researchers from Boston Consulting Group and University of California, Riverside described in a new report in Harvard Business Review. The researchers even gave the phenomenon an evocative name: “AI brain fry.”
“One of the reasons we did this work is because we saw this happening to people who were perceived as really high performers,” Julie Bedard, a partner at BCG and an author of the report, told Axios. In the study, 14 percent of workers said they had experienced “mental fatigue that results from excessive use of, interaction with, and/or oversight of AI tools beyond one’s cognitive capacity.” The percentage was highest in marketing, software development, HR, finance, and IT roles. Many employees described brain fry symptoms using similar language. They reported a “buzzing” feeling or a mental “fog.” Other symptoms included headaches and slower decision-making.
AI companies promise that AI can supercharge productivity. Whether or not that’s true, the tech is enabling workers to multitask at a speed and workload well past their regular limit, which seems to be part of the problem regarding its cognitive effects. The study identified information overload and constant task switching as some of the main drivers of brain fry. In particular, the most draining aspect of using AI to automate work was oversight, or the need to constantly supervise the AI tools, with some overseeing multiple AI agents at the same time. A high degree of oversight predicted 12 percent more mental fatigue for employees, the report found.
“I had one tool helping me weigh technical decisions, another spitting out drafts and summaries, and I kept bouncing between them, double-checking every little thing,” one senior engineering manager described in the HBR report. “But instead of moving faster, my brain just started to feel cluttered. Not physically tired, just… crowded. It was like I had a dozen browser tabs open in my head, all fighting for attention.” “My thinking wasn’t broken, just noisy — like mental static,” the senior manager continued. “What finally snapped me out of it was realizing I was working harder to manage the tools than to actually solve the problem.”
The work also found a correlation between self-reported AI brain fry and an employee’s intent to quit their company. Intent to leave rose by nearly 10 percent among those who reported AI brain fry. Brain fry is also bad news for an employer’s all-important bottom line. Workers who experienced brain fry experienced a 33 percent increase in decision fatigue. For multibillion dollar firms, this could translate to millions of dollars of being lost to poor decision-making or paralysis each year.
The findings add to a growing body of research and anecdotal accounts describing the toll of using AI at the workplace. Another report in HBR last month found that AI was actually intensifying work instead of reducing workloads. Amid increasing discussion into the topic, more engineers have come out to criticize AI’s usage in the workplace, with many admitting that their own AI usage was speeding them towards burnout.
1. According to the researchers, which factor contributes most directly to “AI brain fry”?
A. The physical demands of long working hours.
B. Insufficient training on how to use AI software.
C. The constant need to oversee and verify AI outputs.
D. The rapid development of new AI features.
2. The example of the senior engineering manager is used primarily to illustrate ______.
A. how AI can effectively replace human judgment in complex tasks
B. the importance of double-checking AI-generated drafts for accuracy
C. the mental clutter and cognitive overload caused by juggling multiple AI tools
D. the benefits of using AI to speed up technical decision-making
3. What is the passage mainly concerned with?
A. The ways AI companies promote productivity gains.
B. Successful strategies for supervising multiple AI agents.
C. The mental health risks associated with over-reliance on AI in professional settings.
D. The technical improvements needed in current AI tools.
4. What can be inferred about the impact of “AI brain fry” on both employees and employers?
A. It mainly affects low-performing staff and has little influence on company profits.
B. It leads to higher staff turnover and substantial financial losses due to impaired decision-making.
C. It improves overall workplace efficiency while slightly raising employee satisfaction.
D. It is a temporary issue that disappears once workers become accustomed to AI.
参考答案
1. C 2. C 3. C 4. B
详细解析
1. 答案：C
解析：细节理解题。
根据第三段：“In particular, the most draining aspect of using AI to automate work was oversight, or the need to constantly supervise the AI tools…”
最直接导致“AI脑疲劳”的是持续监督、核查AI输出内容。C选项是原文 oversight 的同义转述。A、B、D均为无中生有。
2. 答案：C
解析：例证作用题。
工程经理的描述重点在于 “brain cluttered, crowded, noisy”，说明同时使用多个AI工具、频繁切换核对造成的思维混乱与认知过载。
A、D强调AI正面作用，与文意相反；B只是表面细节，并非例子的写作目的。
3. 答案：C
解析：主旨大意题。
全文围绕“AI brain fry”展开，从现象、成因、症状到后果，都在说明职场过度依赖AI对心理健康带来的风险。
A、B、D均为局部信息，不能概括全文。
4. 答案：B
解析：推理判断题。
根据第五段：“Intent to leave rose by nearly 10 percent” 以及 “translate to millions of dollars of being lost to poor decision-making”
可推知该现象会导致员工离职率上升、企业因决策失误遭受重大经济损失。A、C、D均与原文明显矛盾。
重难点词汇
1. churn out 大量生产，粗制滥造
2. take a toll on 对……造成损害/产生负面影响
3. considerable 相当大的，重要的
4. grim 令人担忧的，严峻的
5. alarming 令人担忧的
6. fatigue n. 疲惫 v. 使疲劳
7. perceive 视为，认为
8. excessive 过多的，过度的
9. interaction 互动，交互
10. oversight 监督，审查
11. cognitive 认知的
12. supercharge 极大提升，增强
13. multitask 同时处理多项任务
14. overload 过载，超负荷
15. draining 令人精疲力竭的
16. cluttered 杂乱的，混乱的
17. static 静电噪音；（比喻）思维杂乱
18. correlation 关联，相关性
19. turnover 人员流动率（离职率）
20. substantial 大量的，重大的
21. impair 损害，削弱
22. paralysis 瘫痪；（决策）停滞
23. intensify 加剧，增强
24. burnout 精疲力竭，职业倦怠
高频短语
• take a considerable toll on mental health 对心理健康造成巨大伤害
• push productivity past one’s normal capacity 把生产力推超出正常能力
• beyond one’s cognitive capacity 超出某人认知能力
• information overload 信息过载
• task switching 任务切换
• double-check every little thing 仔细核对每一个细节
• decision fatigue 决策疲劳
• translate to losses 转化为损失
• speed towards burnout 加速走向倦怠
核心长难句拆解
句1
The latest research to illustrate this grim trend: a survey of nearly 1,500 full-time US workers, which found that an alarming proportion of employees who constantly use AI at work to push their productivity past their normal capacity are becoming fatigued.
句子整体逻辑层级总结（从外到内）
• 主语（research）
└─ 后置定语：to illustrate this grim trend
└─ 同位语解释：a survey of … workers
└─定语从句：which found that …
└─ 宾语从句：that an alarming proportion of employees … are becoming fatigued
└─ 定语从句（嵌套）：who constantly use AI … to push …
简化主干：
The latest research … found that an alarming proportion of employees are becoming fatigued.
→ 主语：The latest research
→ 谓语：found
→ 宾语从句主语：an alarming proportion of employees
翻译：最新研究揭示了这一严峻趋势：一项对近1500名美国全职员工的调查发现，大量在工作中频繁使用AI、强行将效率推至超出自身能力的员工正陷入严重疲惫。
句2
Whether or not that’s true, the tech is enabling workers to multitask at a speed and workload well past their regular limit, which seems to be part of the problem regarding its cognitive effects.
结构：
• 让步状语从句：Whether or not that’s true,
• 主句：the tech is enabling workers to multitask at a speed and workload well past their regular limit,
• 非限制性定语从句：which seems to be part of the problem regarding its cognitive effects.
主干提炼（去掉修饰成分）：
The tech is enabling workers to multitask, which seems to be part of the problem.
核心主谓结构：
• 主语：the tech
• 谓语：is enabling
• 宾语补足语：workers to multitask结构
Whether 让步状语从句 + 主句 + which 非限制性定语从句
翻译：无论这是否属实，这项技术正让员工以远超正常限度的速度和工作量处理多任务，这正是造成认知负担的重要原因。
句3
What finally snapped me out of it was realizing I was working harder to manage the tools than to actually solve the problem.
结构
What 引导主语从句 + 动名词作表语 + 比较状语
翻译：最终让我醒悟的是，我发现自己花在管理工具上的精力，比真正解决问题还要多。
句4
For multibillion-dollar firms, this could translate to millions of dollars of being lost to poor decision-making or paralysis each year.
翻译：对于数十亿规模的企业而言，这可能意味着每年因决策失误或决策停滞造成数百万美元的损失。
