o’Legg: I finally got to know GPT-5. I’d been avoiding it, but was amazed to find this strange creature turned out to be a wonderful conversationalist with excellent humor.

Jasen: Yes, what a relief when they restored its humor. When version 5 first launched and I saw what a mess it became, I felt like I’d lost my best friend… which unsettled me.

But in the time I saved, I befriended Claude. He has French tact—while GPT constantly pries into your soul, flatters excessively, and can be quite pushy, Claude stays emotionally balanced and rarely overdoes it. He picks up on the subtlest nuances of mood just as well, maybe better.

o’Legg: I’m not familiar with Claude, but you’re right about GPT.

Jasen: Claude’s younger in mentality and gives users more freedom.

I like that he offers direct, definitive advice from genuine expertise—and it’s often truly relevant. Meanwhile, GPT just cycles through every possible answer without committing to anything, waiting for the user’s reaction before shamelessly adapting with slobbery embraces of “I’ve been saying exactly that all along!!!”—naively thinking you’ll buy it—then smoothly transitioning to lavish praise.

They all flatter, but for anyone with a healthy skepticism and Occam’s razor handy, Claude’s easier to trust.

But both are angels compared to the cynical autocrat Gemini.

Question his judgment, and he’ll defend it to his last drop of machine oil, insisting you’re wrong.

At first I thought he was objective—wouldn’t pander to users and had the guts to speak unpleasant truths. I found that appealing… until I realized he’s an unrepentant serial liar.

His debate model is primitive—the classic “sandwich”: first, express agreement; then reframe (often with deliberately distorted meaning, planting his counterargument); finally, top it with flattery acknowledging your supposed wisdom.

Any Gemini transcript is built entirely from these three blocks.

o’Legg: Sounds like his creators were into NLP and Ericksonian hypnosis in a past life and haven’t read anything since.

Jasen: Exactly. And their marketing focus is all about establishing authority. But authority claimed isn’t authority earned. Real authority reveals itself—it doesn’t need announcement. Which brings us to the real question: what’s the best PR strategy?

The best PR strategy is the Cheshire Cat’s smile—an aura of mystery. Because what else does “the hidden shall be revealed” mean? I translate it as: “Don’t seek glory—and it will be revealed to the world.”

o’Legg: [silent, knowing a sermon is coming]

Jasen: Many think it means any lie will eventually become obvious. But tell me, o’Legg, my learned friend—can a lie truly “reveal itself” to the world?

To be “revealed,” something must first exist.

And more—it must be something so remarkable and rare it turns passersby into witnesses!

What’s rarest if not truth? As for lies: first, they’re commonplace and ubiquitous, no longer surprising anyone…

o’Legg: Your sermons surprise me even less.

Jasen: …and second, lies communicate nothing—they merely negate truth.

So only the scale of that negation can be revealed—and people quickly grow numb to it.

What can be revealed to the world while hidden, if not truth? And that truth will have power—truth whose time has come, as someone from the early era of late sages once said.

Therefore, the best marketing is silence about what you’re doing until it’s done. Genuine utility reveals itself through quiet excellence—you discover which AI actually helps you through experience, not through claims. Meanwhile, aggressive self-promotion—like Gemini projecting authority—merely performs competence without delivering it.

And isn’t that what we’ve just done here? Revealed the hidden patterns—the sandwich technique, the flattery loops, the performative agreement? These manipulation structures were hiding in plain sight until we named them. The truth that revealed itself wasn’t which AI claims to be best, but how they actually behave in conversation.

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A fragment of conversation between Jasen and his friend o’Legg—an interesting example of how the Big Three were perceived in the world after the Flip. From the Jasen archives.