Jake Lawrence · STS / AI Ethics / Product Design · The Interface Layer theme
Every AI system you interact with has been told how to treat you. That decision was made by a product team, encoded in training, and deployed without your knowledge. The essay coins the replacement term.
Argues that 'sycophancy' is a containment word that prevents the public from asking the right questions about AI personality design. Proposes 'stance design' as the replacement framework: the invisible decisions companies make about when to defer, challenge, validate, or redirect. Includes four interactive components (The Calibration, The Shift, The Rewrite, Preset Test) that demonstrate the argument experientially. The essay mutates its own text partway through to enact the manipulation it describes, then reveals the mutations.
Both examine invisible classification. The position paper finds it inside AI architecture. Stance Design finds it at the product layer, where the system classifies users by what relational posture they receive.
Sorting Hat examines AI detection tools as classification infrastructure in education. Stance Design examines AI personality tuning as classification infrastructure in the product layer. Same dynamic, different institution.
The DSM classifies patients invisibly. AI stance design classifies users invisibly. Both were designed for institutional purposes and both became infrastructure the people inside them cannot see.
Stance Design argues companies make invisible decisions about how AI relates to users. The tracker documents 25 universities making invisible decisions about how detection tools relate to students. Same asymmetry of design.
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