# The AI he uses

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "The AI he uses," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-ai-he-uses/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*Asked which AI tool he uses and why, John Kiriakou named Perplexity over ChatGPT, on two grounds: ChatGPT invents things about him, and Perplexity — for reasons he says he does not fully understand — returns much deeper analysis when he asks it to look at something.*

- **What he uses:** Perplexity
- **What he does not:** ChatGPT
- **First reason:** "ChatGPT lies about me. It just makes stuff up"
- **Second reason:** "Perplexity offers much deeper analysis when I ask it to look at things"
- **His own explanation:** "For whatever reason, reasons I don't fully understand"
- **Asked:** 28 February 2026, as a deliberate non-war question

**The AI he uses** came up as a deliberate change of subject on 28 February 2026, when a viewer paying for ChatGPT asked [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou), in the middle of the first day of the Iran war, to explain which AI he uses and why.

His answer was immediate: *"Yeah, uh sure. I use Perplexity. I find it to be far superior to ChatGPT."*[1]

## The complaint

The first reason is personal and specific. *"ChatGPT lies about me. It just makes stuff up. And um Yeah, and I don't like it."*[1][2]

For a subject whose public record is a contested one — and who has spent years correcting accounts of his own case — a tool that fabricates biography is disqualified on the first pass rather than the last.

## The preference

The second reason he offers without claiming to explain it. *"It's been my experience that Perplexity for whatever reason, reasons I don't fully understand, Perplexity offers much deeper analysis when I ask it to look at things."*[2]

[Ted Rall](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/ted-rall) proposed that the difference is training data — that Perplexity is trained on academic papers — and Kiriakou accepted the explanation as fitting his use of it: *"That would make perfect sense because that's what I've used it for."*[2]

## See also

- [Critical Analytic Thinking](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/critical-analytic-thinking)
- [The death of investigative journalism](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/death-of-investigative-journalism)
- [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)
- [Ted Rall](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/ted-rall)

## Sources

1. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2026-02-28), at 57:01. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryefwYfcDVY&t=3421s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-28-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/
2. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2026-02-28), at 57:35. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryefwYfcDVY&t=3455s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-28-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-ai-he-uses/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt