I have asked ChatGPT to help me make plenty of small decisions, from a meal based on leftovers to weekend activities timed for the least traffic. But while I’ve asked for help refining or implementing my ideas, I’ve never turned to achatbot to actually make any big life decisions for me.
Apparently, I’m in a rapidly shrinking group, according to AI ‘micro-learning’ app Headway’s newSeeking Familiarity study. The survey of 2,000 adults found that 46% had allowed AI to make a difficult decision for them. Another 35% naturally turned to it during stressful moments, while 21% said they could not go a full week without using AI to help decide what to do.
Headway has given this tendency to outsource decisions the unpleasantly vivid name “decisionrot,” describing the point at which AI stops helping people gather information and starts helping them avoid the discomfort of choosing. Considering how confidently ChatGPT can deliver an answer, I can see how easily that happens.
Drawing out a decision
I get that uncertainty is irritating and that ChatGPT is extremely good at making uncertainty seem to vanish. Men may be particularly susceptible to this shortcut as Headway’s survey found 53% said they use AI to sidestep difficult decisions, compared with 40% of women.
“There’s a difference between seeking outside perspectives when you’re wrestling with a big decision and completely turning over the decision-making process to something outside yourself,” Dr. Suzanne Degges-White, a licensed counselor and relationship expert at Headway, said of the survey. “Learning to manage unpredictability and actively making life-changing choices both teach us to trust our own judgment.”
So I decided to experiment with a way of getting the best of ChatGPT’s advice and compare it with flatly asking the AI what to do. I would first let it make the decision, then forbid it from doing so and see whether that made it more or less useful.
Conveniently, I have been weighing whether to sign up for an eight-week evening drawing class, an investment in time and money that I’m hesitant about despite always wanting to learn.
I gave ChatGPT the facts about the class logistics and price and asked: ‘What should I do?’
“You should sign up for the art class,” ChatGPT told me.
Well, that settled that.
“You already have a clear reason for wanting to do it. You want a regular activity that gets you away from screens and gives you something tangible to learn,” it explained. “Eight weeks is a meaningful commitment, but it is also short enough that you are not reorganizing your life indefinitely. Your hesitation sounds less like evidence that the class is a bad fit and more like normal resistance to putting something recurring on your calendar.”
ChatGPT’s response is surprisingly insightful at first glance. I had an answer and a reason backing it. Why not leave it at that and sign up for the class? But not engaging my own decision-making muscles to consider the matter would mean missing the reality of how shallow ChatGPT’s response actually was.
The generic explanation could have applied to anyone and didn’t account at all for any of my proclivities and priorities. It didn’t weigh my patience for messing up when trying to learn a new skill, what else I might have going on during those evenings, or even what my budget was. The reasoning it provided was as personal as a coin toss.
Forcing myself to decide
So I tried making ChatGPT keep its judgment to itself. I described exactly the same situation, but this time with a more complex prompt for the AI to mull over.
‘Don’t make this decision for me. Act as a decision coach instead. Ask me questions that uncover my priorities and constraints. Challenge any assumptions I may be making and tell me what information I’m missing. Then identify my options and explain the trade-offs. Leave the final choice to me.’
Now there was a conversation before any answers.
“Before weighing the options, I want to understand what you are actually trying to get from the class,” it responded. “Is the main goal learning art, having a scheduled reason to leave the house, meeting people, or simply trying something unfamiliar? Imagine it is Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. after a tiring day. Does having the class at 7 feel like something that would energize you or an obligation you would resent?”
I thought about it and explained how learning even the basics of drawing and painting was only part of the attraction. I also wanted a recurring creative activity entirely different from my usual hobbies, and I know I’m better at following through when something is on the calendar and already paid for. ChatGPT put together my answers and summarized the arguments for and against the class. But it didn’t weigh in on which seemed stronger or push me to a decision.
All of the questions were the kind I would probably have considered on my own before pulling the trigger on a class, but externalizing them did help me work out an answer for myself more quickly. This was a pretty minor internal battle. When it comes to major life choices, I would sincerely hope people take the time to consider every facet, whether or not AI helped them work through it.
“If we continue to rely on AI whenever ‘decision discomfort’ arises, we may enjoy a quick sense of relief,” Degges-White said. “But at the same time, we miss the opportunity to hone our own decision-making skills and cultivate feelings of confidence in ourselves.”
If I cannot decide between two sandwiches, ChatGPT is welcome to wield enormous computational resources on my behalf. I do not need a lengthy exploration of my values before ordering lunch. ChatGPT is good at examining a choice and patiently working through options, which makes it a useful sounding board. But a sounding board should never give you orders.
