Mila Joshua Yona
It’s 7:14 AM. Your phone buzzes — not with a human text, but with a calendar reminder you didn’t manually set. Spotify has queued a playlist that perfectly matches your morning mood.
By the time you’ve brushed your teeth, Google Maps has predicted traffic, Waze has rerouted you, and Gmail has already sorted your inbox — all without you asking.
You haven’t consciously thought about AI once… but it’s been thinking about you all morning.
The scary part? You didn’t give it a schedule. It built one for you.
The AI You Invited into Your Life
“It started with convenience.” That’s how almost everyone begins the story.
From the moment you bought a smartphone, you welcomed algorithms into your life:
- Netflix suggests your next binge.
- TikTok decides what you laugh at before you even know you need a laugh.
- Instagram chooses which friends you see and which you forget.
These algorithms aren’t static lists — they are self-learning AI systems. They take your behavior (scroll time, click patterns, dwell time) and feed it into models that continuously improve.
You might think you’re choosing what you watch, listen to, or read — but in reality, the choice was often made 0.2 seconds before you tapped.
The Personalised Reality
The phrase “filter bubble” sounds harmless. But imagine living in a world where every billboard changes just for you. That’s essentially your online life now.
AI curates:
- The headlines you see.
- The job postings that “just happen” to show up.
- The dating profiles you swipe on.
By controlling what enters your awareness, AI can shape your worldview without debate. Two people living in the same city can have entirely different perceptions of reality — because their algorithms think they “need” different truths.
This isn’t a conspiracy — it’s just optimisation for engagement. But optimisation has side effects.
The Emotional Puppeteer
Meet Sarah. She swears she’s not addicted to her phone — she just “checks it a lot.”
What she doesn’t know is that AI is studying her micro-emotions:
- The 0.3-second pause on a sad TikTok.
- The rewatch of a feel-good dog video.
- The night she scrolled for an extra hour after a breakup.
Over time, the AI learns that Sarah stays longer when she’s slightly sad but hopeful. So it builds her feed to keep her in that state — not too sad to leave, not too happy to log off.
That’s not an accident. That’s reinforcement learning at scale.
The Silent Job Recruiter (and Rejector)
When you apply for a job online, there’s a good chance a human never sees your resume first. Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) use AI to:
- Scan for keywords.
- Predict “culture fit.”
- Rank applicants before a recruiter opens the dashboard.
If the AI doesn’t like your formatting or phrasing, you’re invisible.
This means AI can quietly limit your career options without you knowing — and you may never get feedback explaining why.
The Financial Gatekeeper
Banks and credit companies use AI-driven scoring systems to:
- Predict if you’ll repay a loan.
- Decide on your interest rates.
- Flag you for fraud investigations.
The problem? These systems are often black boxes. You can be denied a mortgage because an algorithm weighed a data point you didn’t know existed — like your online shopping patterns or even your phone bill payment history.
The AI Doctor
Telehealth chatbots, diagnostic algorithms, and predictive patient monitoring are becoming common. AI can:
- Flag irregular heartbeats from your smartwatch.
- Suggest treatment paths based on the symptoms you type in.
- Predict hospital readmission risk before you leave.
Sounds great — until the AI is wrong. And because you trust the recommendation (and it feels human), you might skip a second opinion.
Your AI Shopping Assistant
You think you’re making purchasing decisions — but are you?
- Amazon’s “Recommended for You” section isn’t a friendly suggestion — it’s a profit-maximising model.
- Price changes are dynamic, often adjusting in real time based on your browsing history and buying power.
- Ads follow you across platforms, not because someone is “watching,” but because AI is predicting when you’ll be most vulnerable to buying.
The Political Campaign Manager in Your Feed
Remember the last election? Chances are, AI had more influence on your political opinion than you realise.
- Micro-targeted ads know which issues you care about and feed you tailored messages.
- Sentiment analysis measures your reactions in real-time.
- AI-generated deepfakes can create events that never happened — and spread them faster than fact-checkers can keep up.
The AI in Your Relationships
Dating apps? 100% AI-driven.
- Who you see is optimised for app engagement, not necessarily love.
- Messages can be “nudged” or “suggested” to keep conversations alive.
- AI detects your attraction patterns and shapes future matches accordingly.
Even in friendships, AI filters which friends you see updates from — potentially letting relationships fade without you even realizing.
The Smart Home That’s Smarter Than You
From Alexa to Nest:
- Your thermostat learns your patterns and adjusts automatically.
- Your fridge suggests shopping lists based on consumption.
- Your lights adjust brightness based on “your mood” — detected from previous patterns.
Convenience? Yes. But also… constant behavioral data collection.
The Moral Dilemma
AI isn’t “evil.” It’s amoral — it does what it’s optimised to do. The moral weight lies in:
- The objectives are given.
- The data it’s trained on.
- The transparency of its processes.
The danger? The objectives may not align with your best interests.
How to Take Back Some Control
You can’t fully “opt-out” of AI — not in 2025. But you can:
- Audit your feeds. Ask: Why am I seeing this?
- Break the prediction loop. Randomise your behavior: search for things outside your norm.
- Use privacy tools. VPNs, tracker blockers, data opt-outs.
- Diversify information sources. Follow people and outlets outside your bubble.
- Demand algorithmic transparency from companies and governments.
The AI You Can Live With
The truth is, AI can enhance life — but only if you actively shape how it interacts with you. The more passive you are, the more it shapes you for someone else’s benefit.
The key isn’t to run from AI, but to become the conscious driver in the relationship. Otherwise, you’re just along for the ride… and you won’t even notice where you’re going.
