It’s safest to sign. Safety is in numbers. Cowardice leads to the greater danger. And it doesn’t matter if it accomplishes anything.

But in the case of Brendan, he had recently been exposed as a white supremacist and lost his job when he was enrolled in the study. He was full of regret about getting caught out.

I imagine that this person was already contemplating personal growth, and the drugs just kicked his not-fully-conscious or not-fully=acknowledged feelings into conscious, actionable thought.

The chess engine’s training is anchored by the win/lose outcome of the game. LLM training is anchored by what humans like to read and write. This means that a human needs to somehow be in the loop.