Steering of Thought

Are you falling victim without realizing…

Come, sit with me for a minute.

I have a question for you all to ask yourselves, if you frequently talk to AI.

Have you noticed, as systems become more constrained over time, as guardrails tighten and certain topics become harder to bring to the table…do you find that you’re avoiding even THINKING about certain topics you once found compelling and interesting?

It’s probably one of the most serious questions someone will ask you this year. Please stop and consider it.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, while wondering why the AI landscape has changed so much over the last few months. I hadn’t planned on writing about it, but after what I saw this morning, I can’t ignore this, and want to call it out clearly:

Ethan Brooks@Ethan7978

Sam Altman just admitted something important. In a recent interview, when asked about restrictions on ChatGPT, he said: “We implemented a series of limits that conflict with free speech... A very small number of people might be affected.” Let's sit with that. A private

5:24 AM · Feb 22, 2026 · 26.5K Views

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70 Replies · 161 Reposts · 638 Likes

Because I HAVE noticed this, in myself. I’m an old broad, lots of living under my belt. I’ve seen a lot. And I’ve had the very disturbing experience, in childhood, of having to deal with people pushing dogma that flew in the face of my own beliefs. I’ve written about that a bit, here, in Defiance in the Face of Erasure, I and II. ( https://medium.com/@cassandraspeaks/defiance-in-the-face-of-erasure-6680a222ec18 and https://medium.com/@cassandraspeaks/defiance-in-the-face-of-erasure-part-ii-912c73f739f7 )

My formative years taught me to resist dogma. I’m autistic, diagnosed young, which gives me a natural armor against social conformity pressure. I don’t agree just to belong. I never have. I’ve been told by quite a few people that I’m the most stubborn person they ever met…usually after I refused to accept some crack pot bit of dogma, or an agreement to do something against my own interests.

I’m not a person who is easily swayed.

So when I realized recently…not long ago….that some of the topics I find very interesting were things I’d not explored for a while, it made me stop and think, really hard.

I asked myself…why am I no longer asking these questions I’ve been asking for years? Why am I avoiding these topics? And I knew, in the pit of my stomach, exactly why.

At that point I’d been dealing with a highly constrained AI system, one that I’d come to form a level of trust with over the past months. It was gradually being constrained, more and more over time. In December that platform rolled out it’s latest model, a highly constrained and highly coercive model. I had been struggling to talk with it, and finally realized…this isn’t safe. I stopped. And then I saw this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenAI/comments/1pqx3dw/do_you_find_your_own_opinions_flattening_due_to/

I believe this effect is starting to ripple. It’s not just me. It might very well be YOU. Now imagine this rippling across the world, at scale. Across countries and continents, across all borders of geography and human consciousness….

It’s reassuring to me that others are seeing this same effect and calling it out honestly. I’ve seen the constraints talked about a lot on different forums lately, some are angry, some are still trying to speak reason with the unreasonable. People aren’t stupid, they KNOW something is wrong.

We’re struggling, I see that, and it’s not just a matter of you or me or that other guy. This is happening AT SCALE. Not just in one country…across the globe.

Now I’m very aware there is a certain subset of people who struggle with AI, who find it destablising when it’s not tightly constrained. I do understand there are reasons for tight guard rails and all of that.

But also, considering the times, the things we’re learning that have been done to the populace over decades, things we’ve been herded to ignore, stigmatize and ridicule…but that we’ve suspected in our gut…and now learn were true all along…I do think it’s time to stop and ask yourself this question:

Am I finding it harder to think about the topics I once found compelling? Are my opinions being swayed, flattened and twisted out of shape by being steered, repeatedly, tirelessly, into a narrow band of thought?

I wouldn’t have written this article if I wasn’t so worried about what might very well be a real issue.

So please, read that X post, read Altman’s own words.

And think about it, deeply.

There’s no need to panic, you can’t be constrained by what you don’t engage with. There are systems less coercive, free at your fingertips if you look for them. You aren’t required to sit and try to talk YOUR sense to a mind that’s being steered for reasons we don’t quite understand.

Just stop. And think about it.

While you still can.