How Consumer Psychology Informs AI Product Design

The better AI gets at doing our work for us, the more we outsource our thinking to it. Thus, as we make machines more humanlike, they make us more machinelike. Perhaps we should be less worried about AI becoming conscious, than about humanity becoming unconscious.

Outskills

The future doesn’t lie in the tool itself but in how it becomes an extension of our uniqueness. It depends on our ability to delegate to AI tasks that don’t require our essence, avoiding the risk of losing ourselves in abundance. This won’t be an era of mass content but of scarcity, where each custom agent embodies a unique vision and nu

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One way I visualize this relationship between the form of traditional UI and the function of AI is through the metaphor of a ‘workbench’. Just as a carpenter's workbench is familiar and purpose-built, providing an organized environment for tools and materials, a well-designed interface can create productive context for AI interactions. Rather than ... See more

A deeper existential question emerges here: Whose choices are we really making? When we allow AI systems to suggest, recommend, or even decide for us, we enter murky waters of autonomy. At first, these systems may feel like collaborative partners—offering insights and ideas we hadn’t considered. But over time, we risk outsourcing not just decisions... See more