Your LLM System Doesn’t Have to Be

Harry Frankfurt wrote a wonderful essay called On Bullshit. His central move is a distinction most people miss: the difference between a liar and a bullshitter.

The liar cares about the truth. He has to. Truth is what a liar wants to conceal, and you cannot conceal what you have not first located. Lying is a truth-tracking activity performed in reverse.

The bullshitter doesn’t care about the truth at all. Not for it, not against it. Truth is simply not a variable in his function. His goal is to persuade, to impress, to manage how he is perceived. Whether the words happen to be true is incidental.

That’s an LLM model.