The Illusion of Choice I recently read a statement from a post on LinkedIn that made me pause: "The customer is always right; consumers want and engage with AI-generated content, so advertising campaigns are shifting in that direction." But is it really that simple? Are we truly exercising free will, or are we being subtly guided? Is it an insult to human intelligence to say that many people are influenced without realizing it? In a world where algorithms curate our feeds, what feels like choice is often highly engineered. Every click, scroll, and interaction is tracked and analyzed to predict and influence our behavior. The world no longer waits for us to react: it acts on us first, shaping desires and preferences preemptively. Researchers at the University of Cambridge caution that AI tools might soon influence online decisions, from purchasing choices to voting preferences. The paper discusses the emerging "intention economy," where AI assistants predict an...
Behind every great project, there's an invisible process of sketches, doubts, drafts, deadlines, and decisions no one ever sees. The Unseen Deck is where I talk about all that.