Artificial Decisions: How We’re Delegating Choices, Power and Responsibility to Artificial Intelligence and Machines

“A society that no longer understands how decisions are made becomes more fragile, and more vulnerable.”Every day we delegate decisions that were once ours. Understanding artificial decisions is the first step toward choosing whether to endure or govern them. Daily, we entrust machines with increasingly consequential choices, not just suggestions, but selections affecting credit access, medical priorities, job screening, authorizations, exclusions, blocks, and automated actions. This book begins with one fact: machines no longer merely recommend. They're entering decision spaces. And every delegated decision shifts power, risk, and accountability beyond our control.Artificial Decisions reveals how these systems truly operate, why they decide unlike humans or traditional software, and where they influence daily life unrecognized as decisions. It demonstrates how probabilistic estimates become rigid thresholds, how errors escalate into serial harm, and how accountability dissolves across technical and organizational chains.From education to healthcare, labor to democracy, digital platforms to public systems, the book maps invisible arenas where artificial decisions operate and the social consequences of increasingly normalized delegation. The final section confronts the core issue: how to govern non-neutral decisions. Verification, maintenance, authorization, limits. Not definitive solutions, but minimal conditions to remain accountable for the choices governing us.Because the problem isn't whether machines err. The problem is what happens when they err and no one can say: "The decision is mine."Marco Camisani Calzolari is a strategic communication advisor and AI governance expert based in New York City. For more than 35 years, he has worked on digital policy, AI risk, and the impact of technology on society. He holds institutional roles with governments on AI governance and digital strategy. He is the founder of the Cyberhumanism philosophy and has delivered more than 500 keynotes, including at the United Nations and the UK Parliament. Read more