CONCEPT
Strategic Misrepresentation
The deliberate inflation of benefits and deflation of costs to secure approval for projects that would be rejected if their true parameters were known. Political rather than cognitive — the planner knows the forecast is wrong and produces it anyway.
Strategic misrepresentation is the second of the twin engines that drive Flyvbjerg's planning fallacy. Where optimism bias is sincere, strategic misrepresentation is calculated. The planner does not believe the optimistic forecast. The planner produces the optimistic forecast because the institutional incentive structure rewards optimism and punishes realism. The project that presents honest numbers does not get funded. The project that presents optimistic numbers does. The planner, operating rationally within the incentive structure, produces the numbers the structure demands. In the AI discourse, strategic misrepresentation fills the earnings calls, keynote addresses, and press releases of companies whose trillion-dollar valuations depend on claims the evidence does not support.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The distinction between strategic misrepresentation and optimism bias is morally consequential. Optimism bias exonerates — the planner was wrong but sincere. Strategic misrepresentation implicates — the planner knew and chose. Flyvbjerg's position is that both operate simultaneously in most planning contexts, in