Drifting AI use is the default condition: a working relationship with AI whose terms nobody chose. Habits transfer silently from human coworkers, trust grows wherever friction is lowest, delegation expands one harmless step at a time, and one day the relationship has terms, history, and dependencies that were never decided, only accumulated.
Designed use is the alternative the series argues for: treating the relationship as something to be managed intentionally rather than left to evolve by accident. The first essay supplies the diagnosis, an experienced professional discovering she had transferred her coworker behavior to AI without ever choosing to. The fifth supplies the stakes: left on defaults, the drift runs toward over-trust and dependency on a partner that cannot leave.
The distinction is the quiet spine of the whole series, and the question it leaves with the reader is the practical one: not whether you have an AI relationship, but which of these two modes yours is currently in, and who, if anyone, is steering it.