IMPRINT vocabulary

AI dependence

AI dependence is the IMPRINT signal contributing 20 percent of the Drift Score. It counts dependency flags raised by the Mirror over the last 14 days — moments when you asked it to decide something rather than to help you think — at 10 points per flag, capped at 100.

Written by Suman Debnath, creator of IMPRINTLast updated 5 September 2026
IMPRINT’s own term. This is product vocabulary, not established science. It is defined here so the measurement can be checked rather than taken on trust — the arithmetic is on the methodology page.

In more detail

The Mirror is constrained to ask questions and nothing else. When it detects that a message is asking it to decide, recommend or produce rather than to reflect, it redirects the question back to you and records a flag.

The flags are therefore a record of reaching for an answer rather than of using AI at all. Using AI heavily and deliberately produces no flags; turning to it at the moment a judgement is required produces them.

The scale is deliberately blunt: ten flags in a fortnight saturates the signal. That linear ten-points-per-flag mapping is a design choice rather than a calibrated finding, and it is listed among the methodology's stated limitations.