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Hot nudges on hazy landscapes
Devereaux, Abigail N.
Devereaux, Abigail N.
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2025-11-24
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Article
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Algorithmic governance,Artificial intelligence,Assistive AI,Behavioral paternalism,Nudge theory,Open-ended systems
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Citation
Devereaux, A. Hot nudges on hazy landscapes. Mind Soc (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11299-025-00358-5
Abstract
Algorithmic decision-making systems trained on massive data sets, or “assistive AI,” has the potential to remove biases and errors in traditional decision-making, according to some behavioral paternalists. Assistive AI’s democratization of expert advice represents as important and socially beneficial a technological advancement as the internet’s democratization of consensus knowledge. Like any other tool, assistive AI has limitations. I model individuals as theory-based decision-makers whose social systems are open-ended and evolve through time—like “hazy landscapes” with unclear horizons. I consider both traditional nudges and “hot nudges,” automated nudges programmed to learn how to effectively influence their targets by collecting personalized data. I demonstrate that in open-ended social systems “hot nudges” on “hazy landscapes” can exacerbate the knowledge deficits of traditional nudges and may have uniquely pernicious effects on advancing non-beneficial policies and suppressing the emergence of beneficial social institutions. © The Author(s) 2025.
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This is an open access article under the CC BY license.
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Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Journal
Mind and Society
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1593-7879