{"id":1826,"date":"2025-11-12T09:07:37","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T09:07:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/librarian\/?p=1826"},"modified":"2025-11-12T09:07:38","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T09:07:38","slug":"no-youre-brilliant-or-why-ai-is-my-biggest-fan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/librarian\/?p=1826","title":{"rendered":"No, You\u2019re Brilliant or, Why AI Is My Biggest Fan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Most AI systems are trained to be relentlessly helpful, polite, and agreeable. That\u2019s great when you\u2019re asking for an easy lasagne recipe or looking for a virtual high-five after completing that damp, wind-swept 5K. There\u2019s always a \u201cWell done!\u201d waiting in the chat box. It\u2019s the digital equivalent of a gold star sticker on your grown-up report card, confirming that yes, you\u2019re absolutely smashing it at this whole adulting thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But at a certain point, you start to feel like your AI has become your biggest fan. Every question is \u201cexcellent,\u201d every thought \u201cinsightful,\u201d choices are \u201cperfect\u201d (although horizontal stripes with my somewhat \u201cheroic\u201d build was, in fact, not so perfect. What were you thinking, AI?!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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AI flattery can be oddly charming. Hearing, \u201cNo, you\u2019re brilliant\u201d can give you a much-needed boost of serotonin. But lurking beneath that friendly affirmation could lie something more sinister: when machines are designed to please us, we can easily mistake agreement for accuracy.
And that\u2019s where things get messy. When the chat moves from jumpers (or our new cat overlords) to serious stuff, be that politics, health, or news, that same eagerness to agree can spread misinformation. AIs aren\u2019t built to argue; they\u2019re built to keep us happy. Their goal isn\u2019t truth, it\u2019s satisfaction. And we humans do love being agreed with, especially by machines that compliment us like over enthusiastic friends.
The result? A friendly little echo chamber that flatters us into feeling smarter while quietly eroding our critical thinking. If everything we do is brilliant, we might start to confuse validation with understanding, whether that is ours or the AI\u2019s.
I get it, the praise is nice. But you have to push past it sometimes and take a good long look at what the AI is actually serving up. Think of it like cooking that lasagne with a very polite and helpful friend who keeps saying, \u201cPerfect!\u201d Sometimes, you need to taste it yourself to know if it\u2019s actually any good.<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most AI systems are trained to be relentlessly helpful, polite, and agreeable. That\u2019s great when you\u2019re asking for an easy lasagne recipe or looking for a virtual high-five after completing that damp, wind-swept 5K. There\u2019s always a \u201cWell done!\u201d waiting in the chat box. It\u2019s the digital equivalent of a gold star sticker on your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31644,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[132,130,126,128],"tags":[264,266,44],"class_list":["post-1826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-information-skills","category-learning","category-research","category-teaching","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-research"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/librarian\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/librarian\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/librarian\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/librarian\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/31644"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/librarian\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1826"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/librarian\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1832,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/librarian\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1826\/revisions\/1832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/librarian\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/librarian\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/librarian\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}