What are we willing to delegate to AI?

As AI models become more capable and products make those capabilities easier to use, more of our everyday work becomes possible to hand over. That leaves us with a question about our own preferences: which tasks do we want to do, which do we want help with, and which would we happily delegate completely?
We already make these arrangements with people. Your partner might book a restaurant for your birthday because they know what you like. A colleague might take care of something before you ask because, over time, you’ve come to trust their judgment. We give them room to act and expect them to recognize when to bring us back in.
With memory, context, and access to our tools, AI could take on more of these responsibilities. Our willingness to delegate will depend on what the work means to us.
Different parts of the same task
We might happily hand over expense admin: matching receipts, filling in details, and submitting claims within company policy.
For a birthday dinner, we might want help finding a restaurant, delegate the booking and reminders, but choose the guests and write the birthday message ourselves.
One task can involve help, full delegation, and room to do things ourselves. Automating all of it can remove the parts we enjoy.
Effort doesn’t tell us what to hand over
We might gladly spend an hour writing a personal message while resenting ten minutes of expense admin. What matters is how much we value taking part, not just how long the work takes.
That changes from day to day. Cooking might help us unwind one evening and feel like a chore the next. Knowing our preferences shouldn’t mean assuming how involved we want to be.
Choosing how to work with AI
A useful AI product should let us choose our involvement at the level of each subtask. It needs to know when to offer help, when to act, and when to leave something with us. Completing the whole task is only useful if that’s what we wanted.
Taking part has value, even when AI could get us to the same result faster. We might want to work through an idea, make a personal choice, or simply enjoy doing something ourselves.
When you partner with AI, ask yourself: which parts do I want off my plate, and which would I miss if it did them for me?