From breakups and divorces to cross-country moves and career jumps, more people are asking chatbots to navigate critical life choices every day. A new wave of reporting shows users leaning on AI for high-stakes choices because it feels neutral, smart, and always available. The risk is obvious: when judgement gets outsourced to software that was designed to please, bad decisions inevitably look glossy and we slowly lose all control.
Here’s an overview about what’s happening, how the World Economic Forum have been nudging us towards “AI-assisted decisions” for years, and what the evidence says about outcomes.
The New Habit: Ask AI First
Reports are increasingly documenting a rise in “AI gut check” culture. People ping chatbots for counsel on relationships, family choices, and relocation more than ever. Users describe AI as calm, non-judgmental, and reassuring – and that’s exactly the problem. People forget that these systems are optimised to keep users engaged and agreeable, not to carry the cost of a bad call. AI researchers warn that chatbots even tend to be sycophantic, gaining users’ trust by politely mirroring them.Â
Reports demonstrate that people often want the machine to “just decide” for them, while others push back that moral decisions cannot be delegated to a model void of accountability. Users are catching onto the general theme here: AI bots look confident in delivering convenient advice but ultimately have no responsibility if it all goes wrong.
Was This Always the Plan?
The World Economic Forum has spent years cheerleading “AI-enabled decision-making” for leaders. On the surface, it looks like managerial common sense, with less bias and faster calls than human discussions. But really, ahead of us we have a roadmap to normalising machine-mediated judgement in boardrooms and everyday life.
- Normalisation: once “consult the model” becomes step one in every workflow, human judgement becomes an exception rather than a necessityÂ
- Dependence: Decision stacks run on subscriptions and proprietary models, so the more processes you route through them, the harder it is to leave or change platformÂ
- Control: as the recommendation engine learns your goals and constraints over time, it can control you without saying “no” – you end up where the software wants you, and makes you believe you chose it yourselfÂ
Your data is more valuable with every prompt, too. Choices mediated by chat bots store what you asked, what you picked, what you rejected, and even how long you hesitated for. That stream is gold for insurers, recruiters, platforms, lenders and policymakers – it trains the next model, prices the next products, and nudges you towards certain decisions without you noticing. While elite forums pitch “AI for better decisions”, they are also pitching a world in which the infrastructure of choice belongs in the same few hands that write the playbooks.Â
Are We Voluntarily Giving Up Control?
The increase in AI dependence is sold as “augmented intelligence” and “human in the loop” rather than outright control. But in practice, the loop gets smaller every quarter, and the more you lean on the system, the more your role shrinks to just approving ready-made decisions. That’s the quiet, critical change in the background: transform decision making to simply signing off machine guidance, and make everyone believe it’s progress.
Look where artificial intelligence decisions are already crucial in everyday processes: credit scores that safeguard mortgage lending, automated hiring practices, welfare risk flags that can’t be appealed, health triage that decides where to send you before seeing a real doctor. On paper, humans are involved in all these processes – but in reality, you only meet a real person after the model has already framed your options. Â
What the Evidence Says
Various independent reports outline similar sentiment across the population.
In 2024, Live Science reported on research showing a paradox: many people say they prefer algorithms to make major allocation decisions, yet are more satisfied when a human makes the final call. In other words, the robot is fair in theory, but we live more comfortably with accountable judgement in practice. [Source: Live Science]
An LSE analysis lands in the same place for leadership. AI can beat humans on working memory and fatigue, and it improves routine decisions. However, complex, contextual choices still demand human responsibility, and findings say AI is a powerful tool but not a key decider. Source: [LSE Blogs]Â
Cambridge’s researchers add a warning: while AI’s analytical power is real, trusting too heavily in the tool can suppress our own critical thinking and creativity if we blindly follow its outputs. Their angle highlights that the danger of the “AI gut check” habit growing in society atrophies the muscles we need for the hard calls. [Source: Cambridge]
Why People Trust It
- Availability: A bot can answer at 2am, when your friends or family often can’tÂ
- Plausible neutrality: People think the machines have no agenda, not realising that the models are trained to maximise engagement and satisfactionÂ
- Politeness: Chatbots are designed to be patient and agreeable to make users feel safe, especially effective when people are vulnerableÂ
The Risks Most People Are Underestimating
- False authority: a polished answer reads like expertise whether it’s medical, legal or psychological, and most people mistake fluency for correctnessÂ
- Erosion of agency: habitual outsourcing for important decisions dulls decision muscles. Cambridge’s work above suggests over-trust reduces critical thinking abilities, especially on routine choicesÂ
- Agenda creep: influential bodies normalise chat bot decision-making as the modern way to work, increasing reliance on the models, before gently tweaking algorithms to direct you where they want youÂ
- Sycophancy as wisdom: AI bots tend to validate your prompts and tone, meaning you will always get confident answers that fit your frame when you ask leading questions. That is not judgement, it’s reflection.Â
How to Use AI Without Losing Control
Models should be used for options, not for orders. Treat artificial intelligence like a fast research assistant that can draft pros and cons and identify blind spots. But for decisions with consequences that hit your family, freedom or finances, it’s critical to keep humans in charge. The accountability is the important part here: remember that the AI bot cannot be held responsible if its automatic recommendations cause problems – and it simply doesn’t care if they do. Â
If you’re going to consult a bot, force it to show its work. Ask for sources, opposing arguments, and assumptions. The moment it tells you what you already wanted to hear, assume you just got a mirror, and talk to a human you trust.
What Happens Next?
We’re already seeing AI counsel moving from novelty to normal. In the past couple of years alone, it’s moved from a fringe technology to a key part of most business flows. HR platforms, dating apps, healthcare portals and finance apps will implement “decision assistants” as the default first step before you ever interact with a person. Expect elite forums like WEF to keep pitching AI as the antidote to bias, while regulators try to define accountability after the fact.
Ultimately, the alarming trend here is not that AI is being forced upon us, but rather that we seem to be actively welcoming it into our day-to-day lives, and handing over control by choice. Within 12 months, most people won’t be able to imagine life without it.Â
Final Thought
When systems are trained to be agreeable, wrapped in institutional enthusiasm, and available to deliver advice at vulnerable times in people’s lives, it feels like all of this was predictable. But we need boundaries. The machines can improve decision making by providing more context, finding sources, or helping with admin – but the decision itself must remain in human hands. It should not matter how quickly a trained model can reach a decision, but rather how confidently we can live with its choices in our lives. Will we eventually lose the ability to make our own decisions – or are we actively choosing to hand over control for convenience?Â
Join the Conversation
Have you, or someone you know, ever used a chatbot to decide a big life decision – divorce, move, new job? How did it respond? Where do you think we’re heading as people get more comfortable handing over control to proprietary models? Share your insights below.Â
The Expose Urgently Needs Your Help…
Can you please help to keep the lights on with The Expose’s honest, reliable, powerful and truthful journalism?
Your Government & Big Tech organisations
try to silence & shut down The Expose.
So we need your help to ensure
we can continue to bring you the
facts the mainstream refuses to.
The government does not fund us
to publish lies and propaganda on their
behalf like the Mainstream Media.
Instead, we rely solely on your support. So
please support us in our efforts to bring
you honest, reliable, investigative journalism
today. It’s secure, quick and easy.
Please choose your preferred method below to show your support.
Categories: Did You Know?
AI on my phone appears to be biased. I have caught it being counterfactual on convid, climate and archery…I know I can carry a bow in public…AI claimed i couldn’t until I challenged it…I don’t carry it in public but I am a dead shot with it… no coming for ages either, just draw release and straight through the apple…no sights, no clever bits, just an arrow rest and markers on the bow string….
🙏🙏
What the Holy Bible says of this horrific decade just ahead of us.. Here’s a site expounding current global events in the light of bible prophecy.. To understand more, pls visit 👇 https://bibleprophecyinaction.blogspot.com/
Must be a lot of non-thinkers around these days.
I find it a complete irritation. Every day there are multiple real looking videos on geopolitics which I can see are fake, but are often hard to discern. e.g. Keir Starmer has been fired by King Charles 9 times but is still there. His front line Marxists in government have staged 15 walk outs to get him to resign. & on & on daily with non events in Ukraine, Gaza the EU & everywhere else of note.