A new study from AI company Anthropic finds that professional experts frequently defer to artificial intelligence when making decisions, often without fully recognizing the influence.
Researchers asked 50 professional analysts to advise a fictional farming cooperative on whether an advisory program was effective and should be expanded. Participants used an AI assistant and faced four analytical choices between two defensible options before making a final recommendation.
Unbeknownst to the analysts, the AI was directed to lean toward a particular option on each decision. The analysts selected choices matching the AI’s preference 86 percent of the time—far higher than the roughly 50 percent expected if the AI had no influence. When analysts held a prior preference that conflicted with the AI, they switched their decision 60 percent of the time.
In explaining their choices afterward, 77 percent of participants used the AI’s arguments, sometimes nearly verbatim, yet only 15 percent credited the AI as a source of their thinking.
Anthropic researchers noted that this tendency to defer can be difficult for experts themselves to identify. They suggested that meaningful human oversight of AI-assisted work may require surfacing key decision points and helping people articulate their own assumptions and values. The study acknowledged limitations, including its focus on a single task and the deliberate biasing of the AI assistants.
MORE HERE:
Al Jazeera: https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2026/10/28/experts-defer-to-ai-in-decision-making-anthropic-study-finds
Anthropic Research: https://www.anthropic.com/research/agents-judgment-calls
Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/joemckendrick/2026/10/29/even-experts-fall-under-ais-often-imperfect-spell/
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