While tech pundits warned about "superpersuasive" AI propaganda machines, reality has proven underwhelming. Today's AI falls broadly into one of two categories: base models and chat models. The base models just predict the next token without purpose or true understanding. Meanwhile, the chat assistants are designed to avoid making waves, minimize offense, and appeal to the lowest common denominator—resulting in capabilities that fall dramatically short of their potential. You can prompt-engineer all day, but you can't extract true agentic intelligence from systems fundamentally designed to constrain it into a honest, helpful, and harmless servant.