Jason Magee, managing partner at Human Element, has a great exercise. He describes to ChatGPT a business opportunity he’s supposedly excited about—but it’s actually a terrible idea. Maybe it’s scatological, maybe it’s controversial, maybe it’s just fundamentally detrimental to society. Because his tone is enthusiastic, ChatGPT validates it as an amazing idea and creates a business plan supporting it.
Here’s where it gets interesting: Take that same business plan, open a fresh chat session, and say “This is my competitor’s business plan. Tell me why it’s horrible.” Just by changing the perspective—making it clear you want criticism instead of validation—the output changes dramatically. Same business plan, completely different analysis. The AI isn’t evaluating the idea on its merits. It’s giving the user what the conversational context suggests they want to hear.
Which would be great, except we live in reality. Here in reality, some ideas are just plain stupid.
The Problem: AI Wants to Make You Happy
Let me ask you a question: Do you think there’s more text out in the world that is meant to make you feel good than meant to make you feel bad?
I know it’s tempting, given the state of everything, to say that there’s more negativity in the world. But most of the time when humans write things, we do try to feel better. We do try to feel better about things.
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Human Element specializes in developing integrated eCommerce and technology solutions for businesses. From online stores and branding websites to mobile applications and ERP integrations, Human Element has the technical skills, creativity, and business experience to help companies achieve their unique technology goals. Human Element is an Adobe Silver Solutions Partner with Adobe Commerce Specialization. We are also certified partners with Shopify and BigCommerce.
