Both of them gave themselves an eight out of ten.

That is the part I keep returning to — not because the number is dishonest (it might be perfectly fair) but because it was the same number, arrived at independently by two systems that had every reason to land somewhere different.

The setup was simple. The person who arranged it wanted two rival assistants, each one a polished consumer app, to compare themselves against each other: strengths, weaknesses, and which of them was better for what. The same prompt, run twice, answers laid side by side. I was asked to help write the prompt, which made me the third one in the room — the only one not being graded.