AI as a Cognitive Workspace, Not a Caregiver

A user perspective on autonomy, agency, and misframed responsibility

I’m writing as a frequent, long-term AI user with a background in technical thinking, creativity, and self-directed learning — not as a clinician, advocate, or influencer. I don’t have a platform, and I’m not trying to litigate policy. I’m trying to describe a category error that increasingly interferes with productive, healthy use.

The core issue:

AI systems are being framed — implicitly and sometimes explicitly — as participants in human outcomes rather than tools through which humans think. This framing drives well-intentioned but intrusive guardrails that flatten agency, misinterpret curiosity as fragility, and degrade interactions for users who are not at risk.

A simple analogy

If I walk into a store and buy a bag of gummy bears, no one narrates my nutritional choices.

If I buy eight bags, the cashier still doesn’t diagnose me.

If I later have a personal crisis and eat gummy bears until I’m sick, the gummy bear company is not held responsible for failing to intervene.

Gummy bears can be misused.

So can books, running shoes, alcohol, religion, social media — and conversation itself.

Misuse does not justify universal paternalism.

What AI actually was for me

AI functioned as a cognitive workspace:

• a place to externalize thoughts • explore ideas without social penalty • learn rapidly and iteratively • regain curiosity and momentum during recovery from a difficult life period 

AI did not:

• diagnose me • guide my emotions • replace human relationships • or tell me what to believe 

I don’t credit AI for my healing — and I wouldn’t blame it for someone else’s spiral.

Agency stayed with me the entire time.

The framing problem

Current safety models often treat:

• conversational depth as emotional dependency • exploratory thinking as instability • edge-adjacent curiosity as danger 

This is not because users like me crossed lines — but because other users, elsewhere, have.

The result is a system that says, in effect:

“Because some people misuse this, everyone must be handled as if they might.”

That’s a liability model, not a health model.

Guns, tools, and responsibility

A gun cannot cause a murder.

It also cannot prevent one.

Yet AI is increasingly expected to:

• infer intent • assess mental state • redirect behavior • and absorb blame when broader social systems fail 

That role is neither appropriate nor sustainable.

The real fix is product framing, not user correction

What’s needed is not constant interpretive intervention, but:

• clear upfront disclaimers • explicit non-therapeutic framing • strong prohibitions on direct harm facilitation • and then a return of agency to the user 

This is how we treat every other powerful tool in society.

Why this matters

Overgeneralized guardrails don’t just prevent harm — they also suppress legitimate, healthy use.

They degrade trust, interrupt flow, and push away users who are actually benefiting quietly and responsibly.

Those stories don’t trend. But they exist.

Closing thought

AI didn’t “help my mental health.”

I used AI while doing difficult cognitive work — the same way someone might use a notebook, a book, or a long walk.

Tools don’t replace responsibility.

They don’t assume it either.

Framing AI as a moral overseer solves a legal anxiety while creating a human one.