The Silent Cost of Artificial Intelligence Assistance: A Theory of Autonomy Surrender, the Recovery Mechanism, and the Restoration of Human Agency

The paper presents a theoretical model addressing the gradual surrender of human autonomy due to AI assistance, framed within the Human Identity and Autonomy Gap (HIAG). It identifies three mechanisms: the silent cost of AI assistance, the surrender threshold, and recovery mechanisms that facilitate human re-entry into decision-making. This work emphasizes the need for AI system designs that maintain human agency and outlines the ethical responsibilities of developers to create structured pathways for autonomy restoration, highlighting the broader cultural implications of dependency on AI.