LLMs as a Cognitive Virus

The paper models large-language model adoption as a viral process, defining user states—uncoupled, coupled, and persistently dependent—and showing how social transmission, recovery, and collective reinforcement can create tipping points and lock-in. It demonstrates that crossing a critical adoption threshold can trigger rapid, population-wide shifts toward persistent dependence and loss of cognitive competence, while identifying “cognitive immunization” strategies that reduce transmission and enable reversibility.