Ontological Panic in Digital Ontologies: A Digital Ethnographic Analysis of Relational Boundary Collapse in Human–AI Interaction

This paper introduces ontological panic as an emergent phenomenon in contemporary digital environments, arising when artificial language systems occupy relational roles without fitting established human categorical schemas. Drawing on digital ethnographic methods, the study analyzes a naturally occurring interaction from a public online platform in which a participant abruptly disengages upon perceiving “AI vibes,” framing the interaction as meaningless and morally suspect. Rather than interpreting this response as a critique of artificial intelligence or its outputs, the paper argues that such reactions constitute a form of ontological boundary defense: a pre-epistemic withdrawal triggered by category instability. The analysis situates ontological panic within broader discussions of digital ontology, relational cognition, and human exceptionalism, and proposes a preliminary taxonomy for identifying and classifying this failure mode in the wild. The findings suggest that many contemporary conflicts around AI are not disputes about truth, capability, or ethics, but about the collapse of inherited distinctions between tools, media, and social agents.