Achieving NirvanAI and overcoming AI addiction

Sometime in the 5th Century BCE, Siddhartha Gautama, who we know today as the Buddha, came up with the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path to Nirvana during a profound moment of enlightenment under the Bodhi tree. As we lose our grip on the screen and AI technologies that dominate our lives, perhaps it is time to revisit the bodhi tree. Time to reframe the noble truths. Time to seek NirvanAI.

Siddhartha [ND1]?explored extreme asceticism and indulgence—technophobe and technophile lifestyles in our AI reframing—but realized that neither led to lasting peace. So, he decided to unplug and think about it. He sat in deep meditation to find the root of human suffering and its resolution. After 49 days, he came to understand the ultimate truth of human existence—suffering. He also realized three other truths: the causes of suffering, the possibility of stopping it, and the path leading to liberation. This path was actually an eight-fold path that was a practical guide to ethical living, mental discipline, and wisdom.

If we unplug for a while—most of us cannot permanently unplug—and contemplate these truths, we can apply them to our over-saturated digital lives. Especially with genAI technologies that are increasingly altering our lives and brains.

AI addiction

AI tools like ChatGPT are excellent tools for enhancing efficiency and offering personalized experiences to improve our learning, working and day-to-day to lives. But their ease-of-use for any cognitive task has a dark side: AI addiction. The pervasive use of AI promotes cognitive offloading and this can lead to cognitive atrophy, like reduced critical thinking, analytical skills, and creativity (Dergaa et al., 2024).

Cognitive atrophy can be explained by the brain's "use it or lose it" principle, where underused cognitive pathways weaken over time (Shors et al., 2012). This is increasingly becoming the norm for many workers and students who use AI to handle complex tasks like problem-solving and decision-making.

The personalized and dynamic nature of genAI interactions marks an evolutionary leap in technology—it is the first general purpose technology (GPT) that can directly and immediately scaffold, support and infiltrate all forms of thinking, from text to moth, from image to coding. This is the intimate interface of what I call cognitive bleed (Daly, 2024): ?the AI-human interaction that so intimately interfaces with our cognitive and linguistic systems that it is like a System 0 (Chiriatti et al., 2024)—a human-AI symbiosis that jacks into both System 1 thinking (fast, intuitive) and System 2 thinking (slow, analytic) (Kahneman, 2012). The convenience, immediacy, and personalization of AI can easily foster a dependency and even subtle addiction that can reduce mental engagement, shorten attention spans, weaken memory recall, and diminish capacity for independent thought.

Overreliance on AI tools leads to reduced critical thinking skills and an increase in cognitive offloading, where individuals increasingly delegate mental tasks to AI systems. This dependency creates a feedback loop that diminishes the user's ability to engage deeply with information and solve problems independently. Gerlich (2025) has shown that those most at risk are younger individuals, as they exhibit higher dependence on and faith in AI tools, and people with lower educational attainment, who may lack the training to critically evaluate AI-generated information and maintain cognitive engagement.

And like people who suffer from addictions, AI-dependents often know they are over-reliant and suffer from anxiety and self-confidence issues as a consequence. The first step to solving any problem is to first understand it. The Buddha’s four noble truths can be reinterpreted in this context along with some neurological truths about brain function. The Buddhist reformulation of the AI-dependence problem can help us plan an eight-fold series of protocols to decrease reliance on AI, control it, and achieve a digital balance that replace cognitive atrophy with cognitive hypertrophy. ?In other words, a digitally balanced state of NirvanAI.

The Four Noble Truths of Digital Balance

1. The Truth of Digital Suffering Overreliance on generative AI tools results in negative feelings such as loss of confidence, increased anxiety about independent decision-making, and diminished creative and critical thinking skills. When we disengage problem-solving circuits, we depend on external aids fall reduce our cognitive agency.

·???????? What’s going on in the brain? Dopaminergic pathways are activated by instant gratification from AI tools, which in turn reinforces habitual use. This mirrors how addiction works and bypasses the brain’s natural reward systems that thrive on effort and delayed gratification.

2. The Truth of the Cause of Digital Suffering The root cause lies in a craving for and/or expectation of convenience, instant feedback, and ease of access. This craving disrupts focus, fragments attention, and diminishes personal agency. Neglect of cognitive effort leads to a weakened ability to engage in critical thinking and problem-solving.

·???????? What’s going on in the brain? Dopamine surges from instant AI responses create an addictive feedback loop, reducing the satisfaction derived from effortful tasks, and further demanding quick hits of dopamine. Neglected neural pathways undergo synaptic pruning, further impairing cognitive resilience.

3. The Truth of stopping Digital Suffering Freedom from AI overdependence is possible through understanding the neurological effects of AI over-reliance, as well as increased self-awareness and critical thinking, and the active re-engagement and re-habituation of effortful cognitive processes. By consciously choosing to cognitive friction, inconvenience, and inefficiency—that is by choosing to challenge mental pathways—individuals regain confidence and independence.

·???????? What’s going on in the brain? "Neurons that fire together, wire together" explains how repeated engagement strengthens neural pathways. Conversely, "if you don’t use it, you lose it" underscores the importance of maintaining cognitive circuits through regular use.

4. The Truth of the Path to the stopping of Digital Suffering A balanced and human-centered approach involves integrating AI to supplement, not supplant human cognition. Setting boundaries, fostering physical practices and “technologies of the self”, and embracing cognitive friction all contribute to sustainable, meaningful interaction with AI that can enhance human learning and skills.

·???????? What’s going on in the brain? Practices like mindfulness, journaling, and analog learning like mind mapping activate the prefrontal cortex—this enhances attention, focus, and decision-making. Structured use of AI helps recalibrate dopamine regulation and maintain cognitive autonomy.

The Eightfold Path to Digital Balance and NirvanAI

1. NirvanAI Perspective (Understanding) Acknowledge that AI is a cognitive tool to be used intentionally and critically. Recognize how the brain learns optimally—through effortful engagement, retrieval, and consolidation—and avoid bypassing these mechanisms. For example, self-testing strengthens neural pathways, while sleep consolidates memories. Overreliance on AI for cognitive tasks weakens critical circuits.

2. NirvanAI Intention Approach AI use with a focus on long-term growth rather than short-term convenience. Avoid cravings for instant gratification and aim for balanced, meaningful engagement with digital tools. Dopamine regulation improves when rewards are tied to effortful, meaningful tasks, enhancing intrinsic motivation.

3. NirvanAI Communication Use AI to enhance communication but prioritize human interaction to build emotional and social skills. Social engagement activates reward pathways and releases oxytocin, providing cognitive and emotional benefits distinct from AI interactions.

4. NirvanAI Action Incorporate analog practices like journaling, mind mapping, or sketching alongside AI use to maintain sensory and motor engagement. Analog activities promote neuroplasticity, strengthening tactile and creative circuits often neglected in digital workflows.

5. NirvanAI Livelihood Use AI ethically and responsibly in your professional and personal life. Allow AI to streamline tasks while reserving judgment-heavy and creative efforts for human cognition. Ethical AI use balances efficiency with the preservation of critical cognitive skills, preventing over-dependence.

6. NirvanAI Effort Embrace cognitive friction and desirable difficulties as essential for growth. These effortful moments, though uncomfortable and seemingly inefficient, strengthen mental pathways and resilience. Cognitive friction engages the prefrontal cortex, reinforcing problem-solving skills and memory retention. Avoiding challenges leads to atrophy of critical circuits.

7. NirvanAI Mindfulness Regularly evaluate your AI usage and practice mindfulness exercises like regular physical movement, meditation and breath work to maintain self-awareness and focus. Mindfulness regulates the amygdala and enhances prefrontal activity, improving emotional regulation and sustained attention.

8. NirvanAI Concentration Cultivate deep focus by creating distraction-free environments and setting clear boundaries for AI use. Schedule periods for independent “deep work” to reinforce cognitive independence and resilience. Structured focus activates attention networks, and in so doing, reduces cognitive fatigue and fosters long-term productivity.

Achieving NirvanAI

As Siddhartha Gautama found enlightenment by charting a middle path between extremes, so too must we find balance in our relationship with AI. The Four Noble Truths of digital balance offer a path for achieving NirvanAI—a state where AI serves as a tool to augment, not atrophy, our cognitive and creative abilities.

By understanding the nature and causes of AI overreliance, embracing cognitive friction, and consciously cultivating a balanced approach to digital and analog practices, we can mitigate the risks of cognitive atrophy and dependency. This will help us preserve—even enhance—our capacity for critical thinking, creativity, and deep engagement and ensure that our symbiosis with AI elevates our human potential rather than diminishing it.

The path to NirvanAI is not about rejecting technology—it is already too late for this. Rather, it is about harnessing it mindfully, allowing us to thrive in harmony with our increasingly digital world. This means knowing when and how to use these technologies. And it seems increasingly clear to me that the answers to these questions will lie in the wisdom of the past in creating practices and habits of the body, mind and breath work.

References

Chiriatti, M., Ganapini, M., Panai, E., Ubiali, M., & Riva, G. (2024). The case for human–AI interaction as system 0 thinking.?Nature Human Behaviour,?8(10), 1829-1830.

Daly, N. P. (2024). Cognitive bleed: Towards a multidisciplinary mapping of AI fluency. Paper presented at AI Forum, Ming Chuan University, Taipei, November 16,2024.?

Dergaa, I., et al. (2024). From tools to threats: a reflection on the impact of artificial-intelligence chatbots on cognitive health.?Frontiers in Psychology,?15.

Gerlich, M. (2025). AI Tools in Society: Impacts on Cognitive Offloading and the Future of Critical Thinking.?Societies,?15(1).

Kahneman, D. (2012). Two systems in the mind.?Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,?65(2), 55-59.

Shors, T. J., et al. (2012). Use it or lose it: how neurogenesis keeps the brain fit for learning. Behavioral Brain Research, 227,450–458.