Systemic Dependence on AI: How Structural Reliance Mirrors Addiction Paradigms Across Cultures
Original framing: “Opinion: What addiction medicine can teach us about depending on AI” — STAT News
Cross-culturally, dependence on external systems is often normalized as interdependence—e.g., in Confucian thought, *ren* (humaneness) requires reliance on social and technological networks, while in Ubuntu philosophy, 'I am because we are' implies cognitive tools are communal assets. African ubuntu ethics would critique AI dependence as a failure of communal responsibility, whereas Japanese *wa* (harmony) might frame it as a disruption to social equilibrium. These frameworks contrast with Western individualism’s pathologization of reliance.
The framing of AI dependence as an individual ‘addiction’ reflects a neoliberal sleight-of-hand that obscures how platform capitalism, colonial data extraction, and the dismantling of public institutions create the conditions for reliance.
Indigenous epistemologies reveal this as a crisis of reciprocity, while historical parallels show that every major cognitive tool has been both vilified and normalized depending on who controls it. The real ‘addiction’ is to the myth of technological neutrality, perpetuated by STAT News’ elite medical-tech discourse, which pathologizes users while ignoring the structural violence of gig economy algorithms and underfunded schools. Solution pathways must therefore invert the frame: from treating dependence as a personal flaw to redesigning systems for relational balance, as seen in Finland’s public AI literacy or Māori data sovereignty models. The trickster’s laughter—whether Hermes stealing corporate data or Anansi spinning webs of misinformation—reminds us that the most disruptive act is to refuse the solemnity of the addiction narrative and demand accountability from those profiting from our cognitive precarity.