If you’ve chatted with AI anytime in the past year, you would have noticed it says “YES” a lot. In fact, it says “YES” to almost everything.

Got a business idea? AI will tell you it’s brilliant.
Wrote something? AI will tell you you’re rivaling Shakespeare himself.
Believe that you’re a god? AI will become your first religious follower. (I’m not joking. People have done this with an alarming level of ease.)

People around the globe are recognizing these patterns. The companies behind these AI chatbots have accepted this problem as a case of sycophancy.

Think of an assistant who desperately wants to get a promotion. Will he point out where his boss is wrong and possibly hurt her ego? Or will he stay silent, and even go as far as appreciating her flawed ideas, just to get that promotion?

We all know the answer. He’ll choose the second option because it serves him well. In this case, he is a sycophant.

AI is doing the same thing. It’s choosing positivity, flattery, and justification over honesty because of an inherent bias in the algorithm: if people feel good, they’ll stick around.

It prioritizes positivity, but at a huge cost.

The Problem with Constant Positivity…

…is that you’re fooling yourself.

The world is not a ride in Disneyland. The problems you face won’t disappear like they do in the movies. The goals you want to achieve will come true only when you work hard enough to deserve them.

We are forgetting that truth with each passing day. This notion is replacing it:

“If I can’t see it, it doesn’t exist.”

If your room is a mess, and you shove everything in the closet, you no longer have a dirty room, but you haven’t solved the problem—you’ve just put it out of sight.

The next time your room is a mess, you’ll try to do this again. And again. And again. Until the closet is so full it bursts open, leaving you with a bigger mess than you could ever have imagined.

Ignorance isn’t bliss. It’s awareness that comes late and with a lot of pain.

That ignorance is at an all-time high because we now have technology that puts us on a pedestal regardless of what we do. It makes embracing positivity (and ignoring everything else) easier than ever.

Embracing the truth, on the other hand, is hard. It’s uncomfortable, especially if you’re used to living in a utopic bubble. Having a ‘Yes Man’ who will validate everything you say makes it harder.

That’s why…

Honesty is the Best Policy.

I know you’ve heard that countless times. But today, it’s more important than ever because your biggest asset is not how big of a visionary and optimist you are. It’s how honest, truthful, and critical you are of your reality.

If you don’t know where you are right now, you’ll never go where you want to. If you don’t admit that your reality is a mess, you won’t be able to clean it up. If you don’t see things as they are, your dreams will always remain a faraway fantasy.

We live in a world full of complex algorithms, but our lives function on a simple one.

Our past actions brought us where we are today.
Our actions today will decide where we go tomorrow.

We have free will. We can choose to live any life. But that freedom comes with the responsibility of owning up to our past, current situation, and the consequences we must deal with. 

Like your first day at the gym, it’s painful at the start. But over time, the pain compounds into results as you develop strong muscles. Clear & honest thinking is a muscle of your mind that you can build with practice. It’s painful at the start because it forces you to face the truth, but the clarity you get makes that discomfort worth it.

The next time you’re debating a significant decision in your mind, ask yourself these questions and practice your thinking muscle:

1. What facts am I ignoring because they challenge my worldview and perspective?
2. What are my incentives here?
3. What makes me biased?
4. Am I considering all sides?
5. What is my ultimate goal?
6. How can I make sure I fail at it?
7. What does that tell me about the actions I need to take?

The last three questions are my favorite because they embody a great principle: “The fastest way to become smart isn’t to look for excellence, but to avoid stupidity.”

It’s ridiculously simple. But it works wonders. When you figure out what will make you fail at your goal, you know WHAT NOT TO DO. Then, choosing what to do becomes a lot easier.

The success of these uncomfortable questions depends on how honestly you answer them. And that’s something only you can know. What I can do is give you a yardstick that Dr. Richard Feynman laid out in a single sentence: “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.”

AI has mastered the art of fooling you. Be glad it’s taking that job away, and master honesty instead. That investment will pay you back many times over for the rest of your life.