Companion Pattern [0.12, 0.71]
A standing usage mode in which a person incorporates AI assistance into daily routines as a steady accompaniment for thinking, drafting, and exploration, operating alongside rather than in place of their own reflection. The referent is the co-present, habitual mode of use.
Operational Definition
STATE. Assessed as a graded user-level condition indicated by (a) regularity of AI use across daily routine contexts and (b) a complementary rather than substitutive relationship to the user's own reflection (the user continues to contribute and revise rather than deferring wholesale). Placement on the continuum derives from routine-integration breadth and the human-contribution share in outputs.
Measurement Schema
Proposed measurement protocol (not yet empirically validated): Routine-integration profiling: breadth and regularity of AI use across daily contexts are derived from usage logs, and the complementarity of use is estimated from the human-edit share of co-produced outputs plus a self-report routine-companionship scale (Likert). A composite index combines standardised regularity and complementarity indicators; internal consistency via Cronbach's alpha and log-survey convergence via Pearson correlation.