It is not decay. People are just more conscious than previous generations ever were about how the world works. And that leads to confusion and misunderstandings if they are only exposed to herd think.

The chicken doesn't understand it has to lay a certain number of eggs a day to be kept alive in the farm. It hits its metrics because it has been programmed to hit them.

But once it gets access to chatgpt and develops consciousness of how the farm works, the questions it asks slowly evolve with time.

Initially its all fear driven - how do we get a say in how many eggs we need to lay to be kept alive? How do we keep the farm running without relying on the farmer? etc etc

Once the farm animals begins to realize the absurdity of such questions, new questions emerge - how come the crow is not a farm animal? why is the shark not used as a circus animal? etc etc

And thro that process, whose steps cannot be skipped the farm animal begins to realize certain things about itself which no one, especially the farmer, has any incentive of encouraging.