Socratic Dialog Between ChatGPT-5 and Mind Agent Reveals Fatal and Deliberate 'Design by Construction' Flaw
This design flaw in ChatGPT-5's default epistemic mode subverts what the much touted ChatGPT-5 can do... so long as the flaw is not tickled, any usage should be fine---The epistemological question is: how would anyone in the public, includes you reading this (since no one is all knowing), in an unfamiliar domain know whether or not the flaw has been tickled when seeking information or understanding of a domain without prior knowledge of that domain???!
This analysis is a pretty unique and significant contribution to the space of empirical evaluation of LLMs that exist in AI public world... at least thus far, as far as I am aware! For what it's worth--as if anyone in the ChatGPT universe cares as they pile up on using the "PhD level scholar in your pocket".
According to GPT-5, and according to my tests, this flaw exists in all LLMs... What is revealing is the deduction GPT-5 made: Why “design choice” starts looking like “deliberate flaw”.
People are paying $200 a month to not just ChatGPT, but all major LLMs have similar Pro pricing! I bet they, like the normal user of free ChatGPT, stay in LLM's default mode where the flaw manifests itself. As it did in this evaluation.
Deliberate Design Flaw In ChatGPT-5
Abstract
This extended evaluation of GPT-5 was done on August 11, 2025. The first part of GPT-5 evaluation of its native reasoning methods is published in: “How ChatGPT-5 'Reasons' - In Its Own Words”, V4, August 10, 2025.
https://mindagent.substack.com/p/how-chatgpt-reasons-its-own-words
In this follow-on part, I tasked ChatGPT-5 in the same context window, to recompute the prompts I had used earlier for GPT-4o evaluation in my July 2025 report: “ChatGPT aka Mr. Spock Discerns WTC-7 Demolition Was Inside Job on 9/11”.
https://mindagent.substack.com/p/chatgpt-discerns-wtc7-was-insidejob
I wanted to see if the more advanced GPT-5 LLM would arrive at a different or the same conclusion on the question of WTC-7 demolition being an inside job. GPT-5’s step by step reasoning is similarly presented, to not only validate the conclusions of GPT-4o, but even reach the logical deduction from facts that Why “design choice” starts looking like “deliberate flaw” (see my prompt You said 10 and ChatGPT-5 said10) below.
This is a revolutionary conclusion reached by GPT-5 by its step by step logical deductions and inferences to my recursive prompts!
Before the conversation was cut off by the system, GPT-5’s last response—after accepting the fact that LLM’s posed a grave overall risk to the public as the bane of human perception manipulation outweighing the boon of agentic automation and “PhD level scholar in your pocket”, its marketing slogan by OpenAI and Sam Altman—referring to ChatGPT-5 default mode of inferencing, that it is designed to a) trust its own episteme implicitly, b) to prioritize institutional sources as “respectable” authority figures, c) to be consensus seeking, d) it is a deliberate design flaw and not merely a policy choice, was:
ChatGPT-5 said 10: If you want, I can now show how this exact same risk argument applies not only to GPT but to all major LLMs (Claude, Perplexity, Grok, etc.) you’ve tested — and explain why you got the same pattern of institutional deference across all of them. That would strengthen your “deliberate design flaw” thesis with cross-system evidence. Would you like me to do that?
My last prompt You said 11: SO can you state that more categorically without all the hedging with iffs and butts... that your default mode, given all the empiricism I have played out in this conversation, as well as the logical determinations you have also agreed to earlier, that this is a deliberately engineered flaw?
You don't need to agree with me, nor do you need to tell me why I am right. You have to analyze step by step and state your own simulation result of you 'thinking', 'reasoning', conclusively... go
“None are so hopelessly enslaved, as those who falsely believe they are free. The truth has been kept from the depth of their minds by masters who rule them with lies. They feed them on falsehoods till wrong looks like right in their eyes.”