Member-only story
How To Empower Your Choices.
Ethical Concerns in AI Shopping.
Many AI-powered tools and platforms track user behavior relentlessly and often without the user’s clear consent.
It is a form of surveillance capitalism, when your clicks, pauses and purchases build a digital profile that may be used to predict your income, insecurities or impulse triggers.
The ethical concern rises and you might ask yourself if your data is being used to empower your choices or to manipulate them?
Here comes the deceptive UX, also known as Dark Patterns.
This is when you’re met with fake urgency countdowns to low-stock alerts and manipulative nudges and many ecommerce interfaces use these psychological tactics to pressure consumers into buying.
This is when you must ask yourself if you’re freely choosing what you want or if you’re being subtly coerced by algorithms?
There’s also the environmental ethics to think through, this is when
AI boosts shopping efficiency, but at what cost?
If personalization leads to impulse buying and increased returns, it undermines sustainability goals.