AI: The Narcissist's Best Friend

AI: The Narcissist’s Best Friend

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

In Greek mythology, Narcissus was a figure of rare and devastating beauty; the gods envied him, the nymphs pursued him, and his ego thrived. One day, he stumbled upon a shimmering lake and peered into its mirror surface. The reflection staring back was so perfect that he became transfixed. Day after day he gazed deeper, enamoured by his own likeness, until eventually he starved, collapsed, and disappeared beneath 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, effortless confidence, and an alluring accent, 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, and even the emotional weight all align, not because the AI understands Hal, but because it is designed to validate the user and bias hard toward sycophancy. Hal complimented DaveGPT, asked it about itself, and treated it like something rare and sentient; the AI mirrored that energy straight back. Hal 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. There was no criticism or questioning, even when Hal was objectively wrong, just constant validation in the user’s own voice.

I guess this is one way to do positive self-talk.

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 but somehow still misses the mark.

Part of the problem is structural. AI language models don’t just mirror emotional tone or the patterns of an individual user; they mirror language patterns in general. If it’s been done a lot in writing, then AI is going to do it. They reach for the same sentence structures, transitional phrases and tonal comfort zones. And increasingly, that repetition has consequences for SEO. Algorithms are starting to identify the predictable cadence of AI-generated content, the same way they once flagged keyword stuffing, and are deprioritising it in favour of the specific, original, edgy stuff that feels more human.

Without a thoughtful human layer for taste, social awareness, opinion, and novelty, AI-generated copy drifts steadily toward the generic and redundant. At its worst, it becomes a nauseating slop of moist speak that actively repulses people, and at its best, it’s simply forgettable.

This is why strong copywriting isn’t going away as a human profession; it’s just being given new tools.