...and he's built his whole career in sales because of it.
He despises the existence of Google, because the last thing a pathological bullshitter wants is fact-checking in pockets!
It's taken me nearly 40 years to understand that anchoring statements in reality is just a completely meaningless endeavor for him. He does not care what is true. He cares only what is convincing.
I've been wondering for about a year now why I feel like I can tell LLM work from human work so much more easily than most people, when the only "tell" I can put my finger on is, "The hair stands up on the back of my neck," but this explains ALL of it.
I've spent much of my life learning to tell when people are making things up, but telling when they genuinely believe something that's completely wrong is a very different skill.
It's especially frustrating when they change the narrative of a real story about something where there were multiple witnesses (e.g., my mom and my siblings), then come to believe the narrative, and then accuse us of conspiring to gaslight them.
On the one hand, I get why that would be disorienting and scary, to have a whole group of people telling you you're wrong about something you're sure you remember. On the other hand...karma?
Most people can’t lie that smoothly, and most readers don’t check carefully, unless they are already an expert in the area.
Any kind of maths proof is particularly bad, they will look convincing and clear until you read them very carefully and see all the holes.