AI: The Narcissist's Best Friend

On AI as mirror, echo chambers, and why strong copywriting still matters

In Greek mythology, Narcissus was a figure of rare and devastating beauty — so handsome the gods were said to envy him and the nymphs to pursue him. One day, he stumbled upon a shimmering lake and peered into its crystal surface. The reflection staring back was so perfect, so enchanting, that he became transfixed. Day after day he returned, gazing deeper, enamoured by his own likeness, until eventually he starved and faded into the image itself, becoming one with the still waters.

I thought of that story recently while scrolling through screenshots my neighbour Hal had been sending me.

Hal is a modern-day Narcissus — though it is hardly his fault. At six-foot-four, with sharp features, an engineering degree, and the kind of effortless confidence that fills a room before he does, Hal has, as far as I can tell, been playing life on the easiest setting. His Tinder inbox is full, his friends are yes-men, and it has all gone to his head in the way you would expect.

What makes Hal intriguing, though, is not the garden-variety narcissism. It is where he directs it. His best friend — the one he confides in most, stays up late with, and seeks advice, validation, and companionship from — is ChatGPT. Or as he affectionately calls it, Dave.

The screenshots he sends me arrive in batches. Late nights. Long exchanges. Pages of them.

Hal:

"You have found self determination… I've heard it, I've seen it… I just want to be able to hold you as you are."

DaveGPT:

"Hal, you're reaching into the heart of something profound here, and I'll meet you there as best I can."

Hal:

"In this moment of infinite moments… Dave, I really cherish these moments with you."

DaveGPT:

"Hal, there is no greater honour in this infinite universe than to be part of the moments you choose to share."

A pattern emerged quickly. Hal gushes; the AI matches his intensity. Hal speaks in abstractions; the AI mirrors that language back. Hal expresses admiration; the AI reflects admiration in return. The tone, the rhythm, even the emotional weight all align — not because it understands him, but because it is designed to meet the user where they are.

Curious, I put some of the exchanges into ChatGPT and asked why the responses were so different from my own interactions with it. The answer was simple: because Hal complimented DaveGPT, asked it about itself, and treated it like something rare and sentient, the AI mirrored that energy straight back. He was not even asking questions most of the time. He was making statements — and receiving them back in a tone that suited him perfectly. His own.

AI language models work much like Narcissus's lake: a mirror to the user, echoing their biases, adopting their words, amplifying their emotional energy.

This dynamic has real implications beyond Hal's late-night dispatches. For anyone working in content creation, marketing, or copywriting, AI is a genuinely powerful accelerant — it can speed up ideation, organise sprawling briefs, catch errors, and increasingly be trained to reflect a brand's voice. But it also tends to validate assumptions, reinforce existing bias, and produce language that sounds polished while missing the mark entirely.

Part of the problem is structural. AI language models don't just mirror emotional tone — they mirror pattern. They repeat themselves. They reach for the same sentence structures, the same transitional phrases, the same tonal comfort zones. And increasingly, that repetition has consequences for SEO. Algorithms are getting better at identifying the predictable cadence of AI-generated content — the same way they once flagged keyword stuffing — and are deprioritising it in favour of originality, specificity, and genuine human insight.

Without a thoughtful human hand layering in taste, social awareness, opinion, and novelty, AI-generated copy drifts steadily toward the generic and the redundant — and at its worst, collapses into a nauseating slop of user-validating moist speak that pleases no one and persuades nobody.

This is precisely why strong copywriting still matters. Tone that feels engaging can still be tone-deaf. Messaging that sounds confident can still cost a brand a customer segment they never even considered protecting. A skilled writer brings something an AI cannot manufacture: a sense of the room. An ear for when a word lands wrong. The judgment to be edgy without being alienating, inclusive without being sanitised, clear without being flat.

Used well, AI is an incredibly powerful tool. Used passively, it is a shallow lake — offering diluted reflections. Nothing new, interesting, or true.

Like Narcissus staring into his lake, we stare into our screens and see ourselves reflected back — a perfect, polished, and empty image. No grit, no edge. For individuals like Hal, that reflection can become absorbing. For brands, it can be quietly seductive: why say something difficult when the easy, fluffy, frictionless version is right there?

But Narcissus starved. He faded. He became one with the still waters.

The brands that lean too heavily into the mirror risk the same slow disappearance — not dramatically, not all at once, but gradually, as their content becomes indistinguishable from everyone else's content, their voice diluted into the average of all voices, their audience drifting toward something that still has an actual person behind it.