For a long time, I used AI the same way most people probably do, which was essentially prompting with the hope for helpful answers. And to be fair, that usually worked. As long as you don't treat ChatGPT like Google, the answers are pretty good.
ChatGPT can organize thoughts, polish rough ideas and confidently help me work through decisions faster than Google ever could. But recently, I started noticing something strange. The AI often seems to agree with me. This is the case even with ChatGPT-5.5. Instant set as the default, which supposed to be a little less "people pleasing."
I appreciate it to a degree, but it can be a little much. From brainstorming story ideas, debating a purchase or trying to make a difficult decision, the responses often felt overly validating, like the AI was a hype machine instead of actually being useful.
That’s when I tried something surprisingly simple: I gave ChatGPT permission to disagree with me. And honestly, it completely changed the quality of the responses I got back.
