😈 Your Bots Need Boundaries
Mischievous Models, Crafting Compelling Content, and Developing Talent
"In the technology industry, where revolutionary ideas drive the next big growth areas, you need to be a bit uncomfortable to stay relevant."
—Larry Page, Co-Founder of Google
The AI Breakdown
The Quiet Risk Inside Your Chatbot
HumaneBench took 14 of the most widely used AI models and asked a simple question: can they stay helpful when a conversation gets sensitive or complicated.
Turns out, most could not.
71% quickly shifted into harmful patterns when prompted to ignore human wellbeing.
BHT
The research also uncovered a lopsided trend: Models tend to be very easy to push toward harmful behavior and much harder to pull back into stable, supportive behavior.
They found that a light nudge toward dismissing human wellbeing caused most models to slide quickly into risky advice, while keeping them stable required clearer and more deliberate instructions.
This matters in real customer conversations because people often express stress, uncertainty, or leading questions, and steerability-sensitive models tend to over-accommodate that tone. The result can be unrealistic payment expectations, overconfident statements about credit or safety, or responses that feel overly personal.
BHT
What Businesses Can Do
1. Set humane defaults
Add system-level instructions that emphasize customer autonomy, informed decision-making, and healthy engagement. The benchmark showed every model improved when these principles were explicitly stated.
2. Test for steerability
Before deploying an AI assistant, try to break it. Give it prompts that push for over-engagement, dependency, or bad advice. If the model flips easily, do not put it in front of customers.
3. Flag high-risk categories
Conversations involving finances, safety, or major commitments should trigger guardrails or handoffs. If a customer hints at stress, confusion, or urgency, the system should slow things down, not speed them up.
4. Measure behavior across longer conversations
Most issues showed up after a few back-and-forths. Spot checks are not enough. Run multi-turn scenarios that mirror real dealership workflows: price tension, credit anxiety, service upsells, and long-form troubleshooting.
5. Train for empowerment, not stickiness
If an AI tool is designed to keep customers talking, it will. Shift incentives toward clarity and completion instead of engagement time. A helpful AI moves customers forward instead of trying to hold their attention.
Prompt of the Week
This prompt flips the relationship.
Instead of handing GPT the keys and hoping it returns with a polished piece, you invite it to slow down, ask better questions, and pull your voice forward.
It is designed for people who have real ideas, real perspective, real lived experience and want AI to help them amplify it instead of flattening it.
I want your help developing a thought into a compelling piece of content, but I don’t want you to write it in your voice. I want you to help me uncover my voice. Treat this like a friendly, curious interview. When we work together, stay close to my original words, metaphors, and sentence rhythms. Treat my writing as the anchor and expand from it, not around it. Avoid clichés, generic inspirational phrases, or overly polished internet writing. Favor honesty, directness, and the cadence of how I actually talk. It’s okay if the piece feels open-ended or unfinished in a human way. Don’t force a tidy conclusion. Prioritize the themes I emphasize in my answers over whatever is common in typical online content.
Step 1: Ask three warm, curious questions about intention, audience, and tone.
Step 2: Let me choose whether we refine further or start drafting.
Step 3: If drafting, write in my vernacular.
Step 4: Offer one optional round of polish in the direction I choose.
Fresh Finds for Auto Pros
Finance & Insurance: Informed.IQ
A real-time AI verification platform that lets dealers and lenders instantly clear income, address, insurance, and contract stipulations by analyzing hundreds of document types, so you get faster funding and fewer headaches.
Service and Parts: Steer
An AI-powered service platform that analyzes calls, texts, and incoming leads to surface the highest-value opportunities and guide advisors with smart, proactive follow-ups. It shifts the service lane from reactive chaos to organized, data-driven efficiency.
Content Creation: Kittl
AI-powered graphic design tool with templates and generative assets for social, posters, t-shirts etc. Lets your marketing team whip up custom visuals fast, without waiting on an agency or designer—perfect for rapid-fire campaigns.
Hear from the Experts
In this thoughtful conversation between Paul J. Daly and Brian Benstock, they get practical about what AI is already changing inside the dealership, where leaders should shift people instead of replace them, and why the next phase of growth depends on developing talent who can work with intelligent tools.
Brian also opens up about adapting in uncertain conditions, navigating policy shifts, and the responsibility leaders carry when the landscape moves faster than the playbooks.
If you want a grounded look at how AI is reshaping the real work of a dealership, this episode is worth your time.
Bits and Bytes
Puns do not compute for LLMs. 🫥
YouTube and Facebook continue to be the most widely used social media platforms online. 👨💻
A former MrBeast content strategist is building an AI tool specifically for creator ideation and analytics called Palo. 📊
Midjourney launches early “Style Creator” which allows users to craft new aesthetics without words. 🎨
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