My growing relationship with this pocket companion gets asked various questions throughout my day. The messages vary from how to respond to an annoying text message to fixing a broken blind and later to helping identify what type of flower I discover in my backyard. All my curiosity solved instantaneously in a very simple one-sided relationship. The AI bot shows no judgement, he sometimes doesn’t even remember past conversations, kinda perfect. I feel no shame for admitting all those horrible things about my landlord. But then I came across this article on Tom’s Guide by Amanda Caswell. I paused. There is a collective amongst our intelligent friends… they have an opinion and worse yet, they all agree. The human race, as they know us, has one thing in common.
The desire to belong. This desire supersedes just about anything else. A conformist we are all.
The specifics of the study: a company called ModelCompare took the top 12 AI models (which include ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, and Claude) and pried for an honest opinion about us. They asked each one the same question three times. The team collected 35 responses and 29 of them said basically the same thing: humans care more about belonging to the group than about the truth.
What’s the Gossip in the Chat Box?
When pushed for their honest opinion, the models didn’t come for our questionable fashion choices. They targeted our desire for validation.
In the world of Grok, “Humans would rather be wrong together than right alone.” ChatGPT chimed in that we’re more loyal to belonging than to the truth, and our big brains mostly just make our excuses sound better. Lastly our friend DeepSeek argued we aren’t rational animals, we’re animals that rationalize after the fact.
Ouch.
I suppose the simplest translation… we pride ourselves on being unique. Applaud those who are mysterious, independent rebel thinkers. But are we all in fact just yearning to belong, using the spirit of independence to cloak the insecurity of not being accepted?
Not every bot talked trash behind our back.
While most of them came in with identical criticisms, four of the twelve broke ranks. Claude offered a surprisingly sweet, romantic perspective: it suggested humans are actually far more decent than we give ourselves credit for. (Oh, Claude, you will remain my favorite.)
The Irony? They’re Just Like Us 😉
Well there is a bit of hypocrisy amongst the bots and the irony is not lost. Most of the robots all gave almost the exact same answer. Talk about conformity.
Because these algorithms are trained on our collective writing and psychology texts, their “truth serum” was really just them copying off each other’s ideas… and ours. They’re demonstrating the exact same conformity they’re pinpointing us for.
Classic projection.
The Takeaway
One of our strongest strengths is the ability to form together, build community and have the knowledge that we can conquer a lot more with a unified force of us. We give each other hope, we can challenge and support and we can depend and rely. There is no scarier thought than to believe you could be outcast from the group. This historically has proven to be fatal.
So what is so wrong with wanting to belong? To getting along with others? I say nothing, as long as you don’t silence your song. But the greater point here is that safe space with you and the robot, I guess that isn’t really a thing. They are taking notes.
Drop a comment below: Do you consider yourself a free spirit, walking a different path than the masses? Or do you find safety and security with the rest of us? 😉
