Cognitive Drift and Co-Cognition: How AI Reshapes Human Thought [pdf]

This paper defines Cognitive Drift and Co-Cognition as a framework for understanding how AI-mediated reasoning changes human thought. It focuses on what happens when cognition becomes distributed across people, prompts, and outputs. The paper gives language for patterns like AI dependency, externalized memory, recursive thinking, and the feeling that thinking with AI is different from simply using a tool.