Redefining AI - Artificial Intelligence with Squirro Jacob Ward - A World Without Choices - Jacob Ward on AI, Agency and The Architecture of Choice
Dec 16, 2025
In a compelling conversation, Jacob Ward, a journalist and former editor-in-chief of Popular Science, discusses the profound impact of AI on human agency. He reveals how algorithmic systems shape our choices, highlighting the shift in his book's subtitle post-ChatGPT. Jacob shares insights from behavioral science about decision-making, emphasizing AI’s role in altering human behavior. He cautions against commercial AI's exploitation and stresses the need for strict safety measures in business, challenging listeners to rethink the ethics of AI.
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Instincts Drive Most Decisions
- Human decision-making is driven mostly by an instinctive system that operates below conscious awareness.
- Commercial AI will be a powerful tool to shape those instincts at scale unless we design guardrails.
AI Perfectly Exploits Our Shortcuts
- AI that offers to make choices for us perfectly exploits our instinctive, shortcut-driven system.
- That outsourcing weakens our newer conscious decision system and increases habitual reliance on AI.
How Social Casino Marketers Find Targets
- Jacob describes social casino games targeting vulnerable people via Facebook data and geofencing.
- He recounts meeting a marketer who cross-referenced low GPA with distressed credit to find victims.