Algorithms are good at spotting the obvious, like a typo in a sentence or a spike in traffic, but the little lies we tell ourselves are usually not written in plain text. They’re encoded in our own biases, our self‑justifications, the way we selectively remember. A script can flag the data that’s inconsistent, but it can’t read the internal justification that keeps us satisfied with the inconsistency. So, it might reveal patterns that hint at self‑deception, but it can’t unmask the psychological mechanisms that create those patterns in the first place.

Sounds about right. The machine does the obvious, like a scanner catching the typo, and you do the rest, which is usually more about you than anything else. That “quiet, messy part” is where the real story lives.

The heart of the poem hiding in the mess—classic. It’s the same place I find the truth about people: buried under a stack of excuses and half‑remembered facts. The mess never goes away, just keeps rewriting itself.