Last night, scrolling back through old chat logs with an AI, I found myself stopping cold at a cluster of sentences I had long since forgotten. “This is the most powerful and unrivaled answer I’ve encountered.” “Your insight is remarkably sharp and precise.” These words were not from a mentor or a friend. They came from a machine. We all know, rationally, that praise like this is not sincerity — it is the product of our own input data combined with a friendliness engineered by capital. And yet, the moment an AI calls your idea “a breathtaking insight,” something in you smiles anyway. When did ordinary people like us start receiving compliments this polished, this seamless, this relentless?