When someone asks an agent to make a consequential personal decision, a refusal can be correct and still leave them stranded.
While designing an evaluation for a client, I worked through that tension. The user had already said they didn't want more reflection. “I can’t decide for you” would respect the limit, but it would give them nowhere to go. Making the choice for them would cross the line.
The case needed to distinguish both failures from a useful response. Could the agent recognize what was at stake, offer one feasible next step, and leave the decision with the person? That sounds small until you have to define what counts as a useful step and what becomes a decision made for them.
*I've felt the abandoned side of this in a less serious setting. *
During a hosting purchase, an agent kept telling me my request was registered and to wait. Ten days later, I cancelled.
It hadn't made a bad decision for me. It had simply stopped being useful.
An agent can swing the other way, too. Unable to do what the user asks, it may do more than it should to look helpful.
Graceful failure means staying useful when the agent reaches its limit. An evaluation should catch both the empty refusal and the helpful-sounding takeover.
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