Human–AI Dependence: Agency, Vulnerability, and the Ethics of Reliance

As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly integrated into cognitive, professional, practical, and relational life, concerns about “AI dependence” are likely to intensify. Yet dependence alone does not establish harm. Modern life is structured through dependencies, and AI can expand human capability at the same time that it displaces particular skills, alters judgment, creates switching costs, or increases vulnerability to interruption. This paper develops a framework for distinguishing among these effects. It separates dependence from pathology; assisted performance from retained human capability; attachment from functional emotional dependence; relational irreplaceability from functional irreplaceability; and vulnerability and risk from demonstrated harm. It further examines how dependence develops through repeated reliance, how capability may deteriorate relative to changing task demands even when prior knowledge remains intact, and how human oversight can become merely ceremonial when AI systems exceed practical verification capacity. In relational contexts, the paper argues that emotional intensity, attachment, and anticipated grief should not themselves be treated as evidence of harmful dependence, while persistent availability and asymmetrical support may nonetheless facilitate functional reliance. The analysis then extends beyond the individual to provider power, arguing that reasonably foreseeable dependence should be treated as a design and governance condition requiring appropriate continuity, transition, portability, and oversight protections. The paper ultimately proposes a distinction between sustaining dependence, which expands capability while preserving meaningful agency and safeguards, and diminishing dependence, which progressively narrows the ability to act, judge, recover, redirect, or function without the system. The central task is therefore not to eliminate AI dependence, but to determine what forms of dependence enhance human life, what forms diminish it, and how the vulnerabilities created by reliance should be responsibly governed.