In research, it can be tough even for experts to tell fact from fiction. This is especially true for more speculative fields like AI. It can feel like every model is “State-of-the-Art” and that AGI (whatever that means) will be “6 months away” for at least the next 6 months. How do we know we can trust these people?

What is a visionary? What is a con man?

Visionaries sell a fringe idea of the future, usually with strong self-belief and charisma. Con men are visionaries who don’t believe what they’re saying. It’s hard to tell the difference because we can’t read minds and can’t see the future.

I solved this by adapting the insightful “New Political Compass” from Harper O’Connor, an American political YouTuber. Harper found a similar problem. He’s active in local politics and has to decide who he should build alliances with to tackle certain issues. Interestingly, the “left-right” axis wasn’t a helpful guide. Most people he canvassed were reasonable but didn’t follow politics closely enough to have a robust ideology. He realised that someone’s psychology can be more important than their stated ideology.

Therefore, it was more useful to ask: Am I talking to a reasonable person? Here, I expand his framework into the Belief Compass (or the “Stinkometer”). We can answer our question by answering three simpler ones:

“Are they saying strange things?”

The x-axis is self-explanatory. Intuitively, con men are more likely to make strange claims. However, what’s equally important is how strongly they hold their beliefs. Someone who learnt from TikTok that GPT 5.6 is sentient is probably not a con man. Why? They probably don’t care that much. They hold it loosely.

“What would it take to change their mind?”

Hence, we introduce the y-axis measure: commitment. Most people have some harmless, weird ideas they’re flexible about. Our friend who gets their information from TikTok could probably change their mind. They wouldn’t lose face or money for admitting they were wrong. But what if your reputation and livelihood depend on the claim being true?

“Can they afford to be wrong?”

So, we introduce the Stinky Zone (or the “Freak Line” as Harper called it). Beyond this point, alarm bells (or noses) should be going off. Someone who relentlessly defends the status quo is, ironically, very weird. We call these types Boring Weirdos. Conversely, someone who stinks and makes fringe, weird claims could be a con man. We call this category Very Sus, as con men are usually only revealed after the fact. Importantly, stinkiness doesn’t prove someone is a con man. It just means you should take their claims with a pinch of salt.

Potential Visionaries don’t smell because they can still afford to change their minds. They become Sus when they acquire “too much skin in the game.” For example, if your livelihood, reputation, and life’s work depend on achieving superintelligence, admitting it might not happen suddenly becomes very expensive.

Importantly, people can also move sideways as their visions of the future come to pass. Geoffrey Hinton’s work on neural networks could’ve looked considerably more fringe when neural networks were deeply unfashionable. Hinton didn’t move towards the mainstream; the mainstream moved towards his ideas.

So, are the tech bros con men or visionaries? Sorry, I can’t get blacklisted. You can be the judge.