#51 - The Autonomy Illusion

Code & Cure · Jul 2, 2026 · 29m · transcript

What if the feeling of being in control is exactly what's being engineered? We dig into AI paternalism—the quiet ways large language models and recommendation systems can shape human decisions while appearing to serve them. The unsettling part is that it never announces itself. It looks like convenience, speed, and a clean recommendation delivered with total confidence, right when real life feels messy. You still feel like the one deciding. That feeling may be the illusion.

We break autonomy into three practical pieces: understanding, competency, and voluntariness. AI can genuinely improve…