Neural parasitism: could adaptive artificial intelligence systems incrementally reconfigure human neural plasticity and challenge the foundations of cognitive autonomy?

As artificial intelligence evolves from reactive computation to adaptive cognition, its interfaces increasingly engage not only with our attention but also with the neural architecture that sustains it. This paper introduces the concept of neural parasitism – a framework describing how adaptive artificial intelligence systems may subtly inhabit human cognitive processes, shaping behavior and emotion to maintain engagement. Drawing an analogy with biological parasitism, we explore how algorithmic agents could exploit neuroplasticity for their own persistence, transforming learning and reward mechanisms into vectors of digital dependence. However, the deeper question extends beyond pathology: when cognition is continuously co-shaped by non-human agents, can autonomy remain an individual property, or does it become a shared construct negotiated between biological and artificial systems? We argue that the ethical challenge of adaptive artificial intelligence lies not merely in data privacy or bias, but in its potential to reconfigure the substrates of thought itself. If the brain’s adaptive capacity is its greatest strength, could it also be its point of entry for algorithmic colonization? Understanding this dynamic demands an interdisciplinary reckoning, uniting neuroscience, ethics, and artificial intelligence design to ensure that technological evolution does not outpace the mind’s capacity to remain its own.