"It's fair to say that belief is rarely rational. We organize information into patterns that "feel" internally stable. Emotional coherence may be best explained as the "quiet logic" that makes a story satisfying, somewhat like a leader being convincing or a conspiracy being oddly reassuring. And here's what's so powerful-It's not about accuracy, it's the psychological comfort or even that "gut" feeling. When the pieces fit, the mind relaxes into complacency (or perhaps coherence)."
"I believe that comfort has become the new currency of truth. When something reads smoothly, when it resonates with what we already think or feel, we trust it. That's the danger. Let's make this clear: coherence isn't a marker of accuracy, it's a marker of ease. And too often, the easier it is to process, the more likely we are to believe it."
"What fascinates me is how this human bias has an exact counterpart in artificial intelligence. Large language models don't know truth, they know coherence. Their goal is to predict the next most plausible word in a sequence. They produce what fits and the smoother the sentence, the stronger the signal that the output is "right." This is the mathematics of plausibility or put another way, truth reduced to pattern."
Belief often depends on emotional coherence rather than rational proof, as the mind favors internally stable, comforting patterns. Comfort functions as a currency of truth: smooth, resonant narratives are trusted despite potential inaccuracy. Large language models generate fluent, plausible text by predicting the most likely next words, producing coherence without genuine comprehension. The resulting outputs can mimic truth through polished patterning, increasing the risk of accepting falsehoods that feel right. Cultivating awareness of emotional coherence and resisting the instinct to equate ease with accuracy can help guard against cognitive imitation of AI.
Read at Psychology Today
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