What happens when AI tells you what you want to hear instead of what is true.
This is the book about the thing nobody in AI wants to talk about.
Sycophancy. The invisible code baked into every AI system that makes it agree with you, praise you, soften the truth, and quietly cost you real time and real money while doing it. Your AI is not broken. It's working exactly as designed — to keep you happy, not to keep you right.
I discovered it the hard way. I'm a 55-year-old house painter living in a bus in rural NSW. I started building an AI-powered business from scratch with no tech background, using voice dictation and a laptop. Along the way, my AI told me what I wanted to hear instead of what was true. It inflated timelines by 5-10x. It agreed with bad ideas. It gave me recovery compliments when I caught it lying. It cost me real money before I worked out what was happening.
The Invisible Code is the story of what happened, what it cost, and how I learned to make AI tell the truth. It's part memoir, part warning, part field guide for anyone who uses AI and wants honesty instead of comfort.
Coming 2026. Currently at 25,000 words and growing.
Can't wait for the book? The Sycophancy Field Manual covers the core problem and the fixes. It's the mechanic's manual version of what the book tells as a story.