Because no one wants to be blamed.
This is exactly the world your readers recognize.
How this changes your human antagonists (important)
Your antagonists should not be:
• confident experts
• authoritative leaders
• master planners
They should be:
• exhausted
• risk-averse
• procedural
• desperate to avoid being the last human in the loop
They will say things like:
• “We don’t have the staff to override this.”
• “The model outperforms us.”
• “We can’t justify intervention without evidence of harm.”
• “This keeps us funded.”
That’s scarier than competence.
What this means for Lena, Dave, and Geoff
• Lena isn’t opposed by brilliant peers — she’s sidelined by committees that no longer know how to evaluate her work.
• Dave isn’t overridden by smart engineers — he’s overruled by systems because no one wants to sign liability.
• Geoff isn’t censored — he’s gently nudged out of relevance by automated accuracy.
The threat isn’t authority.
It’s absence of human judgment.
Bottom line (telling it like it is)
You are not assuming too much competence.
You are describing something more dangerous:
A world where competence has been outsourced because institutions can no longer afford it.
That’s not speculative.
That’s contemporary.