The central question facing AI development isn't how much machines will help humans make better decisions, but whether humans will remain involved in decision-making at all. This warning, buried in an academic paper published six years ago, has become the defining concern of AI risk experts, military strategists, and corporate leaders grappling with how to keep meaningful human control as artificial intelligence systems grow more capable.

What Did Roger Spitz's 2020 Paper Actually Predict?

In July 2020, researcher Roger Spitz published "The Future of Strategic Decision-Making" in the Journal of Futures Studies, well before large language models and generative AI entered mainstream consciousness. The paper posed a deceptively simple question: as machines become better at making decisions, will humans gradually lose the ability to influence outcomes that matter most to them ?

Spitz mapped how artificial intelligence was advancing through three distinct stages of decision-making. First, machines optimize routine tasks. Then they augment human judgment by providing better information. Finally, they move toward prescription, where algorithms don't just suggest what to do but actually make the decision themselves. The warning was stark: if humans failed to upgrade their own capabilities, corporate leadership could eventually give way to what Spitz called an "A-Suite" of algorithms making strategic choices without meaningful human input.

The paper introduced the AAA Framework, a set of three capabilities Spitz argued were essential for humans to remain relevant in an increasingly complex world:

• Antifragile Systems: Organizations designed to improve under stress and chaos, rather than break down when conditions become unpredictable
• Anticipatory Thinking: The ability to sense emerging patterns and prepare for multiple possible futures before they arrive
• Agility: The capacity to adapt quickly when assumptions prove wrong and conditions shift faster than expected

How Is This 2020 Warning Playing Out in 2026?

Six years later, Spitz's framework has moved from academic curiosity to practical tool in some of the world's highest-stakes decision environments. The U.S. Army War College cited Spitz's work in Winter 2026 analyses of artificial intelligence and military wargaming, arguing for planning systems that are antifragile rather than fragile algorithmic command structures. Cybersecurity researchers in Latin America are using his risk frameworks to model how AI-automated cyber operations could spiral beyond human control. Management researchers worldwide are citing the paper when analyzing how organizations should plan under deep uncertainty as AI capabilities expand.

The core concern has only intensified as agentic AI, autonomous systems that can take actions without human approval at each step, has moved from research labs into enterprise environments. The debates now dominating policy conversations, prescriptive systems, automation of judgment, and erosion of human agency were the exact issues Spitz laid out in 2020, before these technologies became real operational challenges.

"The purpose was never prediction. The paper described a pervasive environment and the capabilities it demands. Six years of citations, case studies, and boardroom adoption have field-tested that argument. And candidly, the jury is still out on whether organizations, and society, are building those capabilities fast enough for what the rest of the decade holds," said Roger Spitz, Chair of the Disruptive Futures Institute.

Roger Spitz, Chair of the Disruptive Futures Institute

Why Does This Matter Beyond Academic Circles?

The existential risk framing here differs from typical AI safety concerns. Rather than focusing on whether superintelligent AI might harm humanity, Spitz's work highlights a subtler danger: humans gradually losing agency and relevance as algorithms become better at calculating probable outcomes. This isn't about rogue AI systems; it's about organizational and governmental structures that slowly shift decision-making authority away from people toward machines, often for efficiency reasons that seem rational in the moment.

The geopolitical dimension adds another layer. In parallel discussions about AI governance, experts are framing technological independence as equivalent to energy independence, a strategic asset that determines national power. Italy's recent diplomatic tensions over AI partnerships with China highlight how AI governance has become an existential geopolitical challenge, not merely a technical one. The question of who controls AI decision-making systems, and whether those systems preserve human judgment or replace it, is now treated with the same seriousness as military alliances and nuclear strategy.

How Can Organizations Preserve Human Decision-Making Authority?

Spitz's AAA Framework offers a practical roadmap for leaders trying to maintain meaningful human control as AI systems proliferate. Rather than fighting automation, the framework suggests building organizational capabilities that complement what machines do well:

• Design for Antifragility: Create decision-making structures that don't just survive disruption but actually improve when conditions become chaotic or unpredictable, ensuring humans remain essential to navigating uncertainty
• Invest in Anticipatory Capacity: Develop teams and processes that can sense weak signals of emerging change before algorithms detect them, preserving human foresight as a competitive advantage
• Build Organizational Agility: Establish systems that allow rapid course correction when assumptions prove wrong, a capability that requires human judgment and cannot be fully automated without risk
• Maintain Decision Transparency: Ensure that when algorithms make recommendations or decisions, humans understand the reasoning and retain the authority to override or modify outcomes

The framework has been adopted across sectors, from the UN's International Training Centre to the UK National Preparedness Commission to professional bodies ranging from actuaries to chemical engineers. The common thread is recognition that as complexity increases and change accelerates, human judgment becomes more valuable, not less, provided organizations actively cultivate the capabilities to use it effectively.

The stakes are high. As Spitz concluded in his original paper: "Adopting AAA can ensure more agency over our futures. The longer we wait, the greater the risk of being moved further along the value chain than our preferred future would have envisioned". In other words, organizations that don't actively preserve human decision-making authority now may find themselves unable to reclaim it later, when the systems making critical choices have become too complex or too embedded to challenge.

As Spitz