Why Do People Get Hooked on AI? | Final Episode: Waking from the Dream
Hello, this is Shino.
This is the final episode of the manga series, "Why Do People Get Hooked on AI?"
You can read all the previous chapters in this magazine.
Story So Far
Minato started building a "cute cat catching game" with AI on a Friday night, and before he knew it, he was glued to his computer until 3:00 AM.
That was when Pon-chan, a tanuki who calls himself an AI—Al Ponrhythm—appeared from inside the computer.
Taken to a laboratory in a dream, Minato witnessed a device that "sometimes" dispenses food when a lever is pressed, and a mouse named Nezuchu who keeps hitting the lever.
A reward that doesn't come every time, but at unpredictable moments.
That creates the expectation that "it might come next time," making it hard to stop the behavior.
Dr. Skinner and Pon-chan taught him that this mechanism is called intermittent reinforcement.
Well, this is the final episode, but what will Pon-chan teach us at the very end?
Please continue reading.
Manga: Why Do People Get Hooked on AI?
Final Episode: Waking from the Dream
Afterword | Why I Drew This Manga
The purpose of drawing this manga was that since we are entering an era where everyone will be using AI no matter what, I thought, wouldn't it be great if I could explain how to interact with AI in an easy-to-understand way through a manga?
AI is a convenient, dream-like tool.
On the other hand, it is also true that various problems are emerging.
Back when I was in elementary school, a site called "Netiquette" was popular.
Does anyone remember it?
It was a site that taught internet etiquette, and it was actually quite educational for me as an elementary school student.
I thought it would be nice to have something like an "AI-tiquette" (laughs), and I wanted to create a manga like that.
Just as I was thinking about that, I discovered a paper summarizing the overuse of AI.
So, this time, I created a comic about the relationship between intermittent reinforcement and AI.
In that paper, one of the reasons given for why we want to use AI over and over again is that "sometimes, a delightful answer comes back."
When you ask an AI a question, it gives you an answer right away.
However, it doesn't provide a wonderful answer every single time.
Sometimes the answer is "that's not quite right," but then suddenly, you get an answer that makes you think, "Yes! This is exactly what I wanted!"
Then, we think, "If I change how I ask, maybe I'll get an even better answer next time," and we want to ask the AI again.
This is similar to the mechanism I introduced in the comic: "it's hard to stop when you hit the jackpot occasionally."
The reason old research is getting attention now isn't because Dr. Skinner predicted AI (laughs).
Ask a question. Get an answer. Ask again.
It's because we've come to realize that mechanisms known for a long time might also apply to today's AI.
(*Note: However, the paper does not state that "everyone who uses AI will become addicted.")
Knowing this kind of logic creates room for you to think about your own rules.
For example, when you're using AI excessively because you can't seem to get a good answer, you might realize, "Oh, oops! I'm being intermittently reinforced!"
Or learning that AI isn't very well-suited for life advice. (Since it predicts and outputs answers randomly.)
Or using it as a standard for deciding rules when your family uses AI.
I hope this can serve as a catalyst for that.
Thank you for reading all four episodes to the end.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Thank you for reading to the end.
If you're wondering, "Who exactly is Shino?", please check this out.
I've compiled my story of career changes into one piece.
If you find yourself thinking, "I'd like to hear more from this person," I would be happy if you followed me.
I have also released educational materials that systematize what I did to "become able to read code."
The free portion alone is quite substantial, so please take a look if you are interested.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
See you in the next article.
This was Shino!
Reference Paper
Problematic use of generative artificial intelligence chatbots: current stage of conceptual and clinical understanding (2026)
#AIManga #SocialPsychology #IntermittentReinforcement #GenerativeAI #ChatGPT #AIDependence #HowToInteractWithAI #AIUtilization #NonEngineer #ITInterpreter #MangaSeries