Protocol
Record your answer before reading consequential AI advice
You cannot measure influence after the advice has already rewritten your memory of what you thought.
When it fits
- AI will advise on a decision where you want to know how much it changed your judgment.
When to avoid it
- Do not add ceremony to trivial tasks; use this where influence, accountability or calibration matters.
Why it matters
For consequential or evaluative decisions, write your initial answer and confidence before opening the AI recommendation. After reading it, record the final answer and why it changed or did not. This creates an audit of advice uptake and protects the pre-advice state from hindsight.
Steps
- The decision record can distinguish independent human judgment from the post-advice judgment.
An example
Before asking AI whether a migration plan is safe, record your own risk rating and main uncertainty.
Check your result
The decision record can distinguish independent human judgment from the post-advice judgment.
Keep this limit in mind
- Do not add ceremony to trivial tasks; use this where influence, accountability or calibration matters.
Connected ideas
Useful withMeasure adoption, not just whether AI was consulted
Evidence and sources
Provides context
AI-generated advice can influence retrospective confidence in both AI and self, so post-advice confidence may not represent the independent pre-advice state.
The magnitude and direction of confidence updating vary by task and person.
AI advice and human metacognition · Advice and confidence dynamics