Something to Blame

A few years ago, I was discussing with Gil, a good friend, his research on decision delegation to machines. At the time, the focus was on trading. Algorithms, robo-advisors, financial decisions.

It felt technical. But something about it stayed with me.

Not the trading part.

Something else.

We don’t just delegate to improve decisions.

We delegate to make them easier to carry.

Once you see it, it is difficult to unsee.

In organizations, decisions rarely sit in one place. They move. Upwards, sideways, into committees, into advisors. Not always because someone else knows better, but because responsibility becomes less concentrated. Lighter.

In politics, this becomes even more visible. Decisions dissolve into processes, frameworks, institutions. When something goes wrong, it is difficult to locate where it actually sits. It is not that no one decided. It is that no one fully carries it.

Even in everyday life, the pattern is there. “Let’s ask someone who knows.” “Let’s follow what the system suggests.” “The algorithm recommended this.” Small shifts. But they accumulate.

Gil once framed something very simple.

When we delegate a decision, we also create something to blame.

At the time, it sounded clever. Now it feels structural.

Because what moves is not only the decision. It is the weight.

And over time, something more subtle happens. We don’t just delegate decisions. We start outsourcing the consequence of carrying them.

I have seen this in myself as well. There was a period I was very critical. Of organizations, of decisions, of politics. Much of it was not wrong. But it did not change much either. It mostly made me heavier.

Criticism can feel like action, especially when others agree.

Because agreement does something similar to delegation. It lets us place judgement outside ourselves.

And today, agreement is always available. You express something, and immediately you find others who see it the same way. It feels reassuring. If so many people think this, I must be right.

But something else is happening.

We stop questioning.

Not because we reached clarity.

Because we found company.

And slowly, a pattern forms. We delegate decisions to systems. We delegate responsibility to structures. We delegate validation to the crowd. Everything becomes easier to carry. And less ours.

AI sits directly in the middle of this shift.

We describe it as intelligence. Optimization. Better decisions.

Maybe.

But it also does something simpler.

It gives us somewhere to place the weight.

And over time, that changes something more fundamental. Not the quality of decisions. The ownership of them.

And slowly, something more critical is lost. Not control. Not even accuracy. But the link between decision and consequence.

And once that link weakens, the question is no longer whether the system decides better.

It becomes something more personal.

How much of the consequence am I still willing to carry.

Because you can delegate many things. Even decisions. But not entirely what it means to live with them.