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Are LLMs Intelligent, or Just Playing the Assistant?

Cathal Horan

12 Mar 2026 — 1 min read

What if the real challenge in AI is not intelligence, but identity?

Recent research suggests that language models may contain many possible personas, and that generating a response may begin with selecting a role. One of those roles appears to dominate modern systems. It is the familiar helpful assistant.

In the next post we explore the discovery of the Assistant Axis and what it may reveal about how AI systems are trained. We will also ask a deeper question. When we interact with an AI system, who are we really talking to?

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Layers of Meaning: How Detokenization and Abstraction Impact Prompt Design

Alignment by Mistake: Cognitive Biases in Humans and LLMs

The Language Monolith: How AI Reveals the Hidden Structure of Words