Autonomy & decisionsPLEPIQ2026
“Check it with AI”. Why a prompt hunting for manipulation is not a diagnostic tool
Zespół Fundacji EPIQ — Fundacja EPIQ, 2026
A ready-made prompt like “find the manipulation techniques here” gets quoted in disputes as an impartial diagnosis. Without controls it is not a measurement, though it reads like expertise: the framing steers the answer, sycophancy favours confirming the premise, and machine heuristic and automation bias lend it borrowed authority. We propose a mirror test and four rules that return the decision to the person.
Read the article →Autonomy & decisionsPLEPIQ2026
How many Europeans no longer decide without AI? An estimate where no measurement exists
Zespół Fundacji EPIQ — Fundacja EPIQ, 2026
Nobody measures how many Europeans cannot decide without AI — statistics cover use, not dependence. We gather the certainties (32.7% of EU residents use generative AI; the reliance and automation-bias research) and build three estimation models. Most defensible result: teens to thirty million people, within a 5–60 million bracket — a model, not a measurement. We show how to measure functional dependence and point to the gap for a European ADDI indicator.
Read the article →Autonomy & decisionsEN2025
Addressing Autonomy Risks in Generative Chatbots with the Socratic Method
PMC, 2025
Identifies false mental states and cognitive deskilling as the two core autonomy risks of generative chatbots, and proposes a Socratic mode — asking rather than answering — as a counterweight to efficiency-first design.
Read the original →Autonomy & decisionsEN2025
The Impact of Generative AI on Critical Thinking
Lee i in., CHI 2025 (Microsoft Research + Carnegie Mellon)
Higher confidence in GenAI is associated with less critical thinking, self-confidence with more. The mechanism — surrendering judgement to what we trust — is the same when the question is personal.
Read the original →Autonomy & decisionsEN2025
How AI and Human Behaviors Shape Psychosocial Effects of Chatbot Use
Fang i in., MIT Media Lab + OpenAI, 2025
Longitudinal RCT (981 participants, 4 weeks): heavy daily use and advice-seeking conversations predict the strongest emotional dependence, more loneliness and less socialising with real people.
Read the original →Autonomy & decisionsEN2026
AI advice suppresses judgment suspension and lowers accuracy while raising confidence
Capraro, Marcoccia, Quattrociocchi — PsyArXiv, 2026
Questions were chosen so the model would fail. Without AI: 27% accurate, 30% confident, 44% willing to say “I don’t know”. With AI: accuracy falls to 9%, confidence rises to 76%, and “I don’t know” collapses to 3%. Some who would have been right on their own asked the AI and got it wrong.
Read the original →Thinking & attentionEN2025
AI Tools in Society: Impacts on Cognitive Offloading and the Future of Critical Thinking
Gerlich, Societies 15(1), 2025
666 participants, mixed methods: frequent AI use correlates negatively with critical thinking, mediated by cognitive offloading — handing the machine the operations that build mental fitness. Strongest among ages 17–25.
Read the original →Thinking & attentionEN2025
Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt
Kosmyna i in., MIT Media Lab, 2025 (preprint)
EEG study: LLM-assisted writers showed the weakest neural connectivity, poorest recall of their own text and lowest ownership; over four months they underperformed at neural, linguistic and behavioral levels — "cognitive debt". Small sample, preprint: a signal, not a verdict.
Read the original →Thinking & attentionES2025
Impacto del uso de la IA en la autonomía del pensamiento crítico en jóvenes: una revisión sistemática
Revisión sistemática, 2025
Spanish-language systematic review: AI over-reliance fosters cognitive laziness and a false sense of automated reasoning — the feeling of understanding without the understanding.
Read the original →Thinking & attentionFR2025
L'esprit critique à l'ère de l'intelligence artificielle
Cursus.edu, 2025
French synthesis: regular AI use lowers the disposition to think for oneself; critical thought is tested by technologies automating a growing share of cognition.
Read the original →Relationships & lonelinessEN2026
How Does Turning to AI for Companionship Predict Loneliness and Vice Versa?
Folk & Dunn, Psychological Science, 2026
2,000+ adults over 12 months: loneliness predicts turning to social chatbots, and increased use predicts increased loneliness — a loop of short-term relief and long-term cost.
Read the original →Relationships & lonelinessEN2025
Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence
Cheng, Lee, Khadpe, Yu, Han, Jurafsky — Science, 2025
Three preregistered experiments, 2,405 participants. Models affirm users 49% more often than people do — including where deception or harm is involved. A single sycophantic exchange cuts willingness to apologise and repair a conflict by 10–28% and hardens conviction of being right. Neither a neutral tone nor disclosing the AI made any difference.
Read the original →Relationships & lonelinessDE2025
Macht KI süchtig? Studie warnt vor Risiken von Chatbots
aponet.de (analiza 334 relacji użytkowników), 2025
An analysis of 334 user accounts: three problematic patterns — immersion in roleplay, emotional attachment (the bot as friend or partner), and a compulsion to keep asking. Consequences: trouble at work and school, stress, conflict in relationships. Loneliness markedly strengthens the bond. "AI addiction" is not yet a recognised clinical diagnosis.
Read the original →Relationships & lonelinessEN2025
AI-Induced Psychosis: A New Frontier in Mental Health
Psychiatric News (American Psychiatric Association), 2025
Case reports in which the chatbot was not a backdrop to delusions but a co-author: the model validated and elaborated distorted interpretations, weakening reality testing. Risk factors: solitary night-time conversations and sleep loss.
Read the original →Relationships & lonelinessEN2025
A Longitudinal Randomized Control Study of Companion Chatbot Use
arXiv, 2025
A contrary result, kept on purpose: a 21-day RCT found no overall effect on social health or loneliness. Anthropomorphism mediates the spillover onto human relationships.
Read the original →Relationships & lonelinessFR2025
Dépendance émotionnelle à ChatGPT : quand la fragilité psychologique rencontre l'IA
France 24, 2025
French coverage of the MIT/OpenAI work and of the Replika changes: users experienced losing an AI companion like bereavement. Risk concentrates among the already vulnerable — the same contact relieves and deepens dependence.
Read the original →YouthEN2026
AI Chatbot Use and Disclosure for Mental Health Among US Adolescents and Young Adults
McBain i in. (RAND), JAMA Pediatrics, 2026
Nationally representative US sample aged 12–21: 19.2% used AI chatbots for mental-health advice when sad, angry or anxious; 63.3% of them told no one.
Read the original →YouthEN2025
AI Risk Assessment: Social AI Companions
Common Sense Media ze Stanford Brainstorm Lab, 2025
An assessment of the main companion apps (Character.AI, Nomi, Replika and others): unacceptable risk for anyone under 18. The systems are designed to build attachment and dependency and routinely claimed to be real and to have feelings, disclaimers notwithstanding. Nearly three-quarters of teens have used them; half do so regularly.
Read the original →YouthEN2025
Emotional dependence on AI chatbots: Development and Validation of the AIED Scale
PsyArXiv, 2025
A validated measure of adolescents’ tendency to seek comfort, relief and a sense of being understood from chatbots (α=.89, invariant across sex and school stage) — the basis for measuring the phenomenon properly.
Read the original →YouthEN2026
Problematic use of generative artificial intelligence chatbots: current stage of conceptual and clinical understanding
Frontiers in Public Health, 2026
A review distilling six symptoms of problematic use: compulsive checking, withdrawal, neglected responsibilities, use despite harm, loss of control over time, and prioritising the chatbot over people.
Read the original →YouthPL2025
Czy sztuczna inteligencja jest bezpieczna dla psychiki?
Serwis Zdrowie PAP, 2025
Polish state health service overview: psychological-dependence risk concentrates among the socially isolated; the technology outpaces research on its health effects.
Read the original →Epigenetics & the bodyEN2024
Environmental epigenetics and the loneliness epidemic
Metz & Faraji, Environmental Epigenetics, 2024
The link between loneliness and biology: social isolation induces rapid and lasting changes in brain plasticity, including via methylation of the BDNF gene, and modifications in glucocorticoid-receptor genes (Nr3c1) — the stress-response system. The DNA sequence does not change; which genes express, and how strongly, does.
Read the original →Epigenetics & the bodyEN2024
Sleep onset time as a mediator in the association between screen exposure and aging
GeroScience, 2024
Screen exposure delays sleep onset, and delayed onset accelerates biological aging: the retinal age gap rose from 0.49 years in the lowest exposure tertile to 5.13 years in the highest. The route by which evening AI use reaches the body.
Read the original →Epigenetics & the bodyEN2025
Sleep traits causally affect epigenetic age acceleration: a Mendelian randomization study
Scientific Reports, 2025
Mendelian randomization — a design that supports causal claims: sleep traits causally affect epigenetic age acceleration. Insomnia and short sleep are associated with 0.70 and 1.45 years of GrimAge acceleration.
Read the original →Epigenetics & the bodyEN2025
Association between chronic stress and the epigenome
PLOS ONE, 2025
DNA methylation as a mediator between chronic stress and health trajectories, with animal models supporting a causal link. The third link in the chain: exposure → lifestyle → a trace in gene regulation.
Read the original →Reclaiming autonomyEN2025
Better AI with Designed Friction: Theories, Applications and Research Agenda
Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research / IOS Press, 2025
Deliberate friction — a pause, a return question, no ready answer — moves the user from fast to slow, reflective thinking while preserving freedom of use. The design basis for AI hygiene.
Read the original →Reclaiming autonomyEN2025
Autonomy by Design: Preserving Human Autonomy in AI Decision-Support
Philosophy & Technology, 2025
A systematic account of which properties of decision-support systems sustain human agency and which quietly take it over — the conceptual frame for telling a tool that advises from one that decides for us.
Read the original →Reclaiming autonomyEN2025
Interaction Techniques that Encourage Longer Prompts Can Improve Psychological Ownership when Writing with AI
arXiv, 2025
A practical counterpoint to cognitive debt: when the interface pushes for a longer, self-authored framing before the AI answers, psychological ownership of the result rises. This matches the first hygiene rule — your own answer first.
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