New tools open up some new options for behavior while closing off others. When these changes then interact with our inscrutable human brains and the complex social systems in which we operate, the results can be both significant and unpredictable. The technologies in question in these studies are not literally deciding how humans should behave, but their effects can be so surprising and sudden to those involved that a story line of tools determining behavior seems as valid as any for describing what’s going on. (The technology scholar Doug Hill uses the term de facto autonomy to describe this
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