Can AI make emotional decisions? A personal perspective

A few months ago, my wife asked me to cancel our Sam's Club membership. Rationally, I understand her point. Emotionally, I am not ready.

I have been a Sam's Club member for many years. I became a member before my daughter was born. Today she is already a medical student in Galveston, Texas. So when I say I have been a member for more than 20 years, that number carries a timeline of my family life.

That is why this decision is not as simple as checking a spreadsheet. I have an emotional attachment to the store. I remember shopping there, finding a good deal, and believing I was doing something practical for my family.

But life changes. We live in Andover, Massachusetts. The nearest Sam's Club is in Hudson, New Hampshire, almost 25 miles away. We have not been there for at least five years. My wife looked at the situation clearly and said it was time to say goodbye.

The Rational Decision Is Obvious

If I reason about the membership purely with logic, I should cancel it. Driving from Andover to Hudson takes time and gasoline. A bargain is not really a bargain if the trip wipes out the savings.

My wife's reasoning is sound. If we are not going to the store, we should not keep paying for the membership. A rational household budget does not preserve a subscription because it once made sense.

I have a different instinct because I am a bargain hunter. Over the years, I have found many items at Sam's Club priced lower than similar items at other stores. That pattern trained my mind. When I think about cancelling, part of me still asks: what if I give up good deals?

Is that fully rational? Probably not. If we rarely go, then the theoretical savings do not matter much. A low price in a distant store is not the same thing as real savings in daily life.

Humans Are Not Only Calculators

Eventually, we will cancel the membership. I know that. But I am human, and human beings are allowed to have irrational emotions.

We keep old photos. We hold on to books we may never read again. We remember ordinary places because they become part of our story. A warehouse store membership is not grand, but to me it is connected to years of family life.

If every decision were made purely on rationality, the world would be very boring. It might be efficient, but it would not feel human. Our best and worst decisions often come from love, loyalty, memory, hope, and gratitude.

What Would AI Do?

AI is different. So far, AI makes decisions by extending the logic of the input it receives. It can simulate emotional language and help a person think through sadness, joy, hesitation, nostalgia, and regret. But that does not mean AI has its own emotions.

If I asked AI whether I should keep a membership for a store 25 miles away that I have not visited in five years, the likely recommendation would be clear: cancel it. The AI would compare cost, distance, usage, and benefit. It would not remember when my daughter was little.

From my perspective, AI will not have emotion. It will never have emotion in the human sense, and I think that is a good thing. Humans can have emotion. AI should not have its own.

Why This Makes Me Less Afraid of AI

This is one reason I am not worried that AI will overtake humans in the future. To me, AI is a tool. It may become powerful and deeply integrated into daily life. But no matter how advanced it becomes, it is still a tool under human direction.

Of course, tools can be misused. A tool can amplify a human mistake and create new risks. We should be careful, especially in high-stakes areas. But I do not think the danger is that AI suddenly develops a private emotional life and decides what it wants.

The practical question is how humans choose to use AI. Do we use it to think more clearly? Do we use it to hide from responsibility? Do we remain accountable for the final decision? Those are human questions.

The Human Final Answer

My wife is right. We should cancel the membership. The rational decision is already made.

But I am still taking a little time to arrive there emotionally. That delay may not be efficient, but it is human. AI can help us calculate, compare, summarize, and reason. It can show the practical answer faster.

But the strange, tender, irrational parts of life still belong to us. I am grateful for that. A world with perfect rationality and no emotional attachment might be optimized, but it would also be colder. I would rather live in a world where people sometimes keep a membership too long because it reminds them of when their children were growing up.