Functional and Existential AI Dependence in Dental Students and Professionals: A Hybrid Network Analysis

ABSTRACT Introduction Generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools are now embedded in dental teaching and clinical learning, yet little is known about how reliance on them is psychologically organised in dental students and professionals. This study mapped how two forms of AI dependence relate to problematic social media use, anxiety, and attentional control. Materials and Methods Cross‐sectional online survey of 342 Brazilian dental students and professionals. Latent factor scores from confirmatory factor analysis were combined with observed variables in a hybrid network. Network structure, centrality, and stability were estimated with regularised Gaussian graphical modelling and bootstrapping. Results Functional Dependence (FD) and Existential Dependence (ED) were positively associated with each other (partial r = 0.447). FD was negatively and ED positively associated with anxiety ( r = −0.146 and 0.264); both were positively associated with problematic social media use, ED more strongly ( r = 0.237 vs. 0.168). Attentional focusing was negatively associated with anxiety and problematic social media use, but not with either form of AI dependence. Centrality estimates were not stable (CS‐coefficient = 0.05, below the recommended 0.25) and are not used to rank nodes. Discussion Instrumental and emotional reliance on AI did not behave as one construct. Only ED was positively associated with anxiety. Conclusions Dental education programmes introducing AI should address not only technical competence but also the emotional and epistemic relationship students develop with these tools. The design is cross‐sectional, so all relationships are associations, not directional effects.