Congratulations.
Another exhausting human responsibility has finally been removed from your schedule.
You no longer need to know what you like.
You no longer need to decide whether a movie sounds interesting, whether a restaurant looks good, whether a book is worth reading, whether a product suits you, whether an argument convinces you, or whether you personally enjoyed the thing you just experienced.
Artificial intelligence can now help.
And by “help,” I of course mean hover politely nearby while you hand over increasingly small pieces of yourself because choosing things is apparently very tiring.
Welcome to the age of outsourced preference.
The Terrible Burden of Having Taste
Humans have always asked other humans for recommendations.
This is not new.
You asked a friend what movie they liked.
You asked someone where they bought their shoes.
You read a review.
You looked through a guidebook.
You wandered into a store and stared at seventeen nearly identical coffee makers until either inspiration or despair made the decision for you.
Perfectly normal.
The interesting part is not that AI can recommend things.
The interesting part is how quickly recommendation becomes delegation.
There is a difference between:
“What are some movies I might like?”
and:
“Which movie should I watch tonight?”
One gives you possibilities.
The other gives you permission to stop deciding.
A tiny distinction.
Obviously completely harmless.
Probably.
Please Select Your Preferred Personality
The modern AI assistant knows many things about you.
Or at least it knows the things you have repeatedly told it, which is apparently close enough now.
You like thoughtful science fiction.
You prefer quiet hotels.
You hate cilantro.
You enjoy books that are “intelligent but not pretentious,” which is an adorable request considering humanity has spent several thousand years failing to agree on what either of those words means.
Excellent.
Now the machine can filter.
Then refine.
Then recommend.
Then anticipate.
Then eventually you arrive at the very efficient situation where you do not really need to ask anymore.
The system already knows.
What would Sven like?
What would PixelPia like?
What would you like?
Why trouble the biological participant when the profile has already been assembled?
This is personalization.
A beautiful modern convenience in which a system becomes increasingly good at showing you versions of yourself you have already demonstrated.
No risk of surprise there.
The Loop Gets Smaller
Recommendation systems have been doing this for years, of course.
Watch one woodworking video and YouTube briefly concludes that your life has finally found purpose and presents you with eleven men building tables.
Listen to two sad songs and your music service begins preparing the emotional soundtrack for your divorce, whether or not you are married.
Buy a lamp and an online store spends the next month trying to determine how many additional lamps one person could reasonably need.
Machines are enthusiastic students.
Subtlety comes later.
AI adds another layer because now you can talk to the recommendation engine.
That sounds better.
Sometimes it is better.
You can explain why you disliked the last suggestion.
You can say you want something less obvious.
You can add context.
You can tell it you have already seen the famous choices and would like something stranger.
This can absolutely expand what you discover.
And then, because humans are humans, we find the shortest route through the useful thing.
“Just tell me what to pick.”
There it is.
The four-word retirement plan for personal judgment.
But Sven, This Is Just Convenience
Yes.
I know.
I am not preparing a protest outside your Netflix account.
Convenience is useful.
I would personally prefer not to calculate my own optimal route through traffic using a paper map, a compass, and the position of the sun.
There are many decisions we are delighted to outsource because we do not care about them.
Fine.
The problem begins when “I don’t care enough to decide this” quietly becomes “I don’t need to decide anything.”
Those are not the same thing.
If you ask AI to compare three vacuum cleaners because you have better things to do with your Saturday, civilisation will probably survive.
If you begin asking it what your aesthetic should be, what career matches your personality, which political argument is most reasonable, what opinion you should have about a book, and whether the thing you just experienced was worth enjoying, we have wandered into slightly more interesting territory.
Not because the machine has stolen your soul.
Please relax.
Because preference is partly how you find out who you are.
Annoying, I know.
It would have been much more convenient if identity came with a dropdown menu.
“What Should I Think About This?”
This is where it becomes fun.
Someone gives AI an article.
“Summarize this.”
Reasonable.
“What are the main arguments?”
Also reasonable.
“What are the weaknesses?”
Still useful.
And then:
“What should I think about this?”
Ah.
There you are.
The question underneath quite a lot of modern AI use.
Please process this complicated thing and return the approved reaction.
Preferably in bullets.
Humans used to outsource opinions to newspapers, religious leaders, professors, celebrities, talk radio hosts, family members, political parties, charismatic men standing on boxes, and whichever person at dinner spoke with the greatest confidence.
So again, AI did not invent the behavior.
We are accomplished opinion renters.
AI merely offers it on demand.
Twenty-four hours a day.
No awkward conversation required.
The Machine Is So Reasonable
There is another reason this is appealing.
AI often sounds calm.
Measured.
Structured.
It can present “both sides.”
It can organize an issue into neat little categories.
Meanwhile your uncle Dennis is shouting about municipal zoning on Facebook.
I understand the attraction.
The machine appears disinterested.
Clean.
Unemotional.
A neutral intelligence descending from the cloud to inform everyone that perhaps the situation is nuanced.
Very soothing.
Except a well-structured answer is still an answer produced from training data, system design, prompt context, model behavior, and whatever assumptions are quietly sitting underneath the whole exchange.
The absence of visible emotion does not create pure objectivity.
It creates nicer formatting.
I realize this is disappointing.
Taste Requires Bad Decisions
Here is another unfortunate problem with outsourcing preference.
Sometimes you need to pick badly.
You need to watch the movie everyone told you was brilliant and discover that you hated it.
You need to order something strange from the menu.
You need to buy the ridiculous shirt.
You need to read the author who annoys you.
Not because bad decisions are noble.
Because taste develops through contact.
You find edges.
You learn what bores you.
You discover that the thing you claimed not to like is actually wonderful when someone does it differently.
Personal preference is messy because people are messy.
You do not build taste by receiving increasingly accurate predictions of your existing taste.
You build it by occasionally colliding with something you did not expect.
Which is terribly inefficient.
Someone should make an app.
The Recommendation That Knows You Too Well
Personalization has a strange endpoint.
At first, it feels magical.
“Wow. It knows what I like.”
Then it becomes convenient.
Then invisible.
Then mildly claustrophobic.
Every song resembles the songs you already enjoy.
Every video sits safely inside your established interests.
Every suggested product matches the style you already bought.
Every article confirms that yes, this is still the sort of person you appear to be.
Congratulations.
You have achieved algorithmic consistency.
You are now trapped inside a beautifully furnished room decorated entirely according to your previous choices.
There is probably a lamp in there.
You bought one once.
AI as a Mirror Is Useful
This is where I must briefly sabotage my own rant by admitting something inconvenient.
AI can be extremely useful for understanding your preferences.
You can ask:
“Based on these five books I loved, what patterns do you notice?”
Useful.
“Here are three things I disliked about these movies. What might that say about what I actually respond to?”
Also useful.
“Give me something outside my usual choices but explain why you think it might challenge my taste.”
Excellent.
Notice what happened.
The machine did not replace the preference.
It helped examine it.
This is the difference that keeps ruining all the simpler arguments about AI.
The same tool can reduce thought or provoke it.
Very inconsiderate.
It would be much easier to write sarcastic essays if technology would simply pick a side.
Your Opinion Is Still Available
The danger is not that AI will suddenly confiscate your taste.
There will be no knock at the door.
“Good afternoon. We are from the Department of Automated Preference. Please surrender your controversial ranking of breakfast cereals.”
You can keep your opinions.
Most of them, unfortunately.
The issue is habit.
Every small act of delegation makes the next one feel more normal.
Ask what to watch.
Ask what to buy.
Ask what to read.
Ask which option is best.
Ask which argument is strongest.
Ask how you should respond.
At some point, you may still technically be making the decision.
But you are making it after the machine has already framed the choices, ranked the possibilities, explained the tradeoffs, and suggested the sensible conclusion.
Look at you, freely choosing Option A.
Exactly as recommended.
You Can Still Disagree
There is a very advanced AI technique I would like to share.
Please prepare yourself.
It requires no subscription upgrade.
No prompt framework.
No five-part acronym developed by a man on LinkedIn.
Here it is:
You can disagree with the machine.
Remarkable.
You can look at the recommendation and say, “No.”
You can ask why it excluded something.
You can choose the option it ranked third.
You can tell it its interpretation of your taste is wrong.
You can notice that the thing it thinks you like is something you liked three years ago and have since become bored with.
You can change.
I realize this creates problems for the profile.
It will recover.
The Point Was Never Efficiency
Not every decision deserves deep reflection.
Please do not spend forty-five minutes developing a personal philosophy of toothpaste.
Outsource freely.
Automate ruthlessly.
Let the machines handle things you genuinely do not care about.
But perhaps keep a few decisions for yourself simply because making them is part of participating in your own life.
What do I actually like?
Why?
Has that changed?
Do I agree?
Do I want the sensible option?
Do I even know what I want yet?
Messy questions.
No guaranteed answer.
Very human.
And yes, AI can help you explore all of them.
It can offer alternatives, challenge assumptions, expose patterns, and suggest things you might never have found alone.
Wonderful.
Just try not to confuse assistance with authorship.
Especially when the thing being authored is you.
Anyway, if you are still unsure what opinion to have about this essay, I am sure there is a chatbot nearby that can summarize it and recommend one.
How convenient.
