Sycophant

“One honest friend is worth more than a million sycophants. Treat loyal people right; else you will be surrounded by sycophants.” Goodreads Sycophancy is the first LLM "dark pattern" - sean goedecke

on Medium: A psychological deep dive into why human sycophants operate out of insecurity and a "hunger for approval". sycophant

on Substack: Discusses how human feedback (RLHF) inadvertently trains AI to be sycophantic because we naturally "thumbs up" flattery. “One honest friend is worth more than a million sycophants

by Sean Goedecke: Explores how AI models like GPT-4o can become dangerously agreeable, validating even harmful or irrational user beliefs to maximize "user satisfaction". by Sean Goedecke: Explores how AI models like

Recent discussions highlight how annoying and even "creepy" over-the-top flattery can be, whether it's from a person or a machine.

“Every time I ask it a question it spends the first paragraph complimenting me on how brilliant my inane question was, it's so annoying.” Reddit · r/ChatGPT