I wonder if the obsequious way that AI replies to my most banal questions is the same smarmy way that billionaires expect to be addressed by their hangers-on?

If so, this explains a lot.

Just an honest labor statistician collecting the data, crunching the numbers, and reporting them fairly, and definitely not an extremist ideologue with an axe to grind, unshackled from respect for the law or political norms.