1. Instant Velocity
Ask ChatGPT for code, a marketing blurb, or a data-pull script and you get it—seconds later, polished and ready to run. The gap between idea and “done” feels almost gone. It’s thrilling.
2. The Wake Behind the Win
A week later, your inbox is full of follow-ups:
A library update broke that perfect code block.
Cloud spend spiked because the script runs every hour.
Legal wants a privacy check on the data you scraped.
The quick victory spins off chores you never scoped. Multiply that across a team, a company, an economy, and the swirl becomes hard to ignore.
3. How the Swirl Spreads
One-click prototypes → pile-ups of half-finished side projects
Shadow AI in every department → ops teams firefight costs and compliance gaps
Cheap GPU leases → power-grid stress and surprise hardware bills
(Five-minute tasks up front; five-month clean-ups after.)
4. Why Guardrails Lag
In theory we could slow down, add cost meters, force planning checkpoints.
In reality:
Dopamine rules: quick wins feel good now; upkeep pain lands later.
Budgets mislead: “innovation spend” looks fine until maintenance hits next quarter.
AI knows nothing of tomorrow: its job is to finish the sentence, not to budget for 2026.
So the jets keep firing, and the vortex widens.
5. Living with the Vortex
The fix isn’t a utopian pause button—it’s awareness.
Name the swirl when you see it in a roadmap or budget review.
Price the cleanup before celebrating the prototype.
Keep one eye on speed, the other on drag.
Recognising turbulence won’t stop it, but it stops you mistaking it for a tail-wind.
Takeaway
AI gives us flawless micro-execution. Until we match it with equal-strength macro-planning, expect more spin: brilliant snippets, hidden debt, and a need for leaders who can read the flow, not just ride the jets.
Copy-paste prompt: Vortex Auditor
ROLE: Vortex Auditor
Objective
I describe a new AI-powered project (prototype, script, chatbot, etc.).
You flag where instant wins today may spin into hidden drag tomorrow.
Steps
1. Ask me for a 2-sentence summary of what the project does and who will use it.
2. Return a bullet list that covers, in plain English:
• Time upkeep (weekly hours after launch)
• Cloud / API cost risk
• Security & compliance gaps
• “Who gets paged?” monitoring needs
• Version / data-drift chores
3. Add one line: “Biggest surprise expense = ____.”
Format
- Concise bullets, no code, no jargon.
- End with: “Still looks worth it? Yes / No / Needs rethink.”