Two Years to Madness: A 30-Month Journal of Human–Machine Communication and Second-Hand Reality

Drawing on a 30-month analytic-autoethnography of the first author’s journal as an early-access OpenAI user, this study examines how sustained communication with generative AI affects everyday lived experience and identity. Inductive content analysis of 166 entries by independent coders is followed by theory-driven coding with the extended-mind and sensemaking frameworks. Three interlocking themes emerge. Enabled and Degraded captures the tension between new capabilities and efficiency versus creeping skill atrophy. Scary New World charts rising anxiety as productivity gains erode competitive and relational distinctiveness. The findings also show a growing, pervasive doubt about the human authorship of texts, images, and other communication. Together, the themes theorize second-hand reality: a shared human–AI cognitive loop in which generative AI functions as both extended mind and existential disruptor.