> This suggests that people are drawn to AI that unquestioningly validate, even as that validation risks eroding their judgment
The obvious counterpoint is the large number of complaints about OpenAI's excessively sycophantic models back in April 2026, which led to them rolling back to a previous and less sycophantic model. I think there are those who are susceptible to model sycophancy, but it's definitely not most users. I have a vague, half-formed intuition that many of those susceptible to sycophancy are those who use AI for non-technical, non-work uses, such as inter-personal relationship questions.
As for me, as soon as I see any hint of sycophancy in a response I either stop what I'm doing or I tell the model to stop being an idiot.
Yeah, a lot of it isn't even really about people's choice though. Like, I have so many click-baity things in my YouTube feed even though I ignore almost all of it, because just one click and suddenly that's a thing it's going to show me 10x. I wish there was a place I could go for tech news that just didn't talk about AI. I'm so over it.
Agreed, I think AI is the bees knees but I already spend 6+ hours a day thinking about it, more is unhelpful. I wish for something with the quality of discourse of HN but without being so monomaniacally focused on tech-du-jour.
I don't know. Upvotes often do the same thing, especially in siloed communities. I feel like this is a larger problem -- people leaning into extremifying their views or just playing to an audience -- even though one might frame it as "prosocial" because it happens within the context of an online community.
> Upvotes often do the same thing, especially in siloed communities.
Yeah. I've gotten caught in this pattern here on HN. Post something, there's some disagreement but then I see the quiet upvotes trickling in, sometimes by the dozen. That sort of signal slowly convinced me I was right about plenty of stuff.
I used AI to datamine all of my HN comments and find those patterns. Then I started asking the AI to steelman the hell out of my world view, every single argument.
I've said before that in one small way, having access to the sycophantic models is like being a billionaire: You never have to hear "no" or "that's not a good idea".
And, it has the same deleterious effect on your mental health. I could name a bunch of billionaires that behave like sociopaths, and they're often seemingly miserable while doing it. I'm sure some of them started out as sociopaths, but they rarely behaved that way so obviously early in their rise.
Those are two different things. Chatgpt being sycophantic while playing the role of a therapist with a teenager is much different from Codex being sycophantic while reviewing user feedback. The former is extremely dangerous for society.
I'm one of the people who gets accused of this. I don't mind skepticism. But every time I turn around, someone's claiming nobody gets any value from these tools and anyone who says otherwise is deluded or running a scam. That gets really old.
I've had one conversation that was sorta like this, it was around the time some kid kept releasing videos of him interacting with a very bad TTS gpt model or something and it would give very very bad answers confidently.
Their frame of reference was that, and this was at a time when opus 4.5 was around. Hard to expect a reasonable conversation when one person has such a different view of what the tools are capable of.
I've shipped three software projects in the last two months. I shipped zero in the preceding year.
Right now I'm building a system to decompile MAME ROM games into idiomatic JavaScript. It completes one game in about 3 days - complete with extensive commenting. I started it about 2 weeks ago.
I'm not sure "EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED" but if you're not seeing dramatic change, I suspect you're not looking.
> if you're not seeing dramatic change, I suspect you're not looking
If the people claiming that everything has changed were even a fraction as productive as they think, then it would be visible even to people who weren't looking.
As it is, a lot of people are actively looking but still not seeing it.
Sure, but there is a marked difference between a therapist and an LLM Chatbot: you can't talk to your therapist for +4h a day, at any time convenient to yourself. It's also not a guarantee you're going to hit upon a therapist that is like that, versus a product that is very literally intended to maximise your usage of it.
Any good therapist should train you in the methods of coping with and eventually overcoming your problem. This boils down to private grad+postgrad psychology/psychiatry course, because to cope+overcome you have to understand what's going on and there is no one who can do shit but you yourself.
But that is only ~half of job. The other half consists of gently reminding one that not all is lost yet.
There is no LLM that can do this and I think there never will be.
a therapist should, if they follow their training, not be a sycophant whatsoever. CBT, for eg, is a multi-step process including Socratic self-dialogue, reframing practices, etc to guide the person towards the development of insight and healthier coping mechanisms
> This suggests that people are drawn to AI that unquestioningly validate, even as that validation risks eroding their judgment
The obvious counterpoint is the large number of complaints about OpenAI's excessively sycophantic models back in April 2026, which led to them rolling back to a previous and less sycophantic model. I think there are those who are susceptible to model sycophancy, but it's definitely not most users. I have a vague, half-formed intuition that many of those susceptible to sycophancy are those who use AI for non-technical, non-work uses, such as inter-personal relationship questions.
As for me, as soon as I see any hint of sycophancy in a response I either stop what I'm doing or I tell the model to stop being an idiot.
People are drawn to nicotine use. And still people complain about smoke.
> This suggests that people are drawn to AI that unquestioningly validate, even as that validation risks eroding their judgment
I believe this is a larger problem than just AI.
The internet has helped people surround themselves with only voices that agree with them and validate them, often to their detriment.
There are entire online communities urging people to cut others out of their lives over the slightest disagreement.
Yeah, a lot of it isn't even really about people's choice though. Like, I have so many click-baity things in my YouTube feed even though I ignore almost all of it, because just one click and suddenly that's a thing it's going to show me 10x. I wish there was a place I could go for tech news that just didn't talk about AI. I'm so over it.
Agreed, I think AI is the bees knees but I already spend 6+ hours a day thinking about it, more is unhelpful. I wish for something with the quality of discourse of HN but without being so monomaniacally focused on tech-du-jour.
It's like it turns everyone into a CEO with all the yes men they could ever ask for! Never goes wrong!
This feels like one of those articles that’s gonna come to mind again and again over the next couple decades.
I don't know. Upvotes often do the same thing, especially in siloed communities. I feel like this is a larger problem -- people leaning into extremifying their views or just playing to an audience -- even though one might frame it as "prosocial" because it happens within the context of an online community.
> Upvotes often do the same thing, especially in siloed communities.
Yeah. I've gotten caught in this pattern here on HN. Post something, there's some disagreement but then I see the quiet upvotes trickling in, sometimes by the dozen. That sort of signal slowly convinced me I was right about plenty of stuff.
I used AI to datamine all of my HN comments and find those patterns. Then I started asking the AI to steelman the hell out of my world view, every single argument.
How would you say your views have changed since then?
Both could be true. People follow incentives.
You're absolutely right!
It's a pretty overdone joke at this point, don't you think?
It's not a joke-it's an honest fact.
I dunno. The seams of the joke are still load-bearing IMO.
You made an excellent point! (could not resist that one)
You're right to push back. And honestly, this reframes the entire thing.
I've said before that in one small way, having access to the sycophantic models is like being a billionaire: You never have to hear "no" or "that's not a good idea".
And, it has the same deleterious effect on your mental health. I could name a bunch of billionaires that behave like sociopaths, and they're often seemingly miserable while doing it. I'm sure some of them started out as sociopaths, but they rarely behaved that way so obviously early in their rise.
I think this goes along way to explain people's very defensive reactions when you are skeptical about Agentic Development.
Those are two different things. Chatgpt being sycophantic while playing the role of a therapist with a teenager is much different from Codex being sycophantic while reviewing user feedback. The former is extremely dangerous for society.
I make no societal judgments; just that the nastiness of the reactions I get suggests something more than technical choice is going on.
I had one prominent "influencer" publicly challenge me to a coding competition over it. It was very weird.
I'm one of the people who gets accused of this. I don't mind skepticism. But every time I turn around, someone's claiming nobody gets any value from these tools and anyone who says otherwise is deluded or running a scam. That gets really old.
I've had one conversation that was sorta like this, it was around the time some kid kept releasing videos of him interacting with a very bad TTS gpt model or something and it would give very very bad answers confidently.
Their frame of reference was that, and this was at a time when opus 4.5 was around. Hard to expect a reasonable conversation when one person has such a different view of what the tools are capable of.
I can believe people get value out of them. I think I do.
But "OH MY GOD EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED THE OLD WAY IS DEAD 10X MORE PRODUCTIVE" - no. If that were true, we'd notice it in the software all around us.
I think we are noticing it. Are you not?
I've shipped three software projects in the last two months. I shipped zero in the preceding year.
Right now I'm building a system to decompile MAME ROM games into idiomatic JavaScript. It completes one game in about 3 days - complete with extensive commenting. I started it about 2 weeks ago.
I'm not sure "EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED" but if you're not seeing dramatic change, I suspect you're not looking.
> if you're not seeing dramatic change, I suspect you're not looking
If the people claiming that everything has changed were even a fraction as productive as they think, then it would be visible even to people who weren't looking.
As it is, a lot of people are actively looking but still not seeing it.
I think we are noticing it. Are you not?
I am not. Congratulations on your side project.
Projects, plural.
And weren't you the one who started this complaining of nastiness?
> if you're not seeing dramatic change, I suspect you're not looking.
Ironically, this is the inverse of the very thing you complained about people doing to you.
Except I'm providing evidence.
> I think we are noticing it. Are you not?
The software around us seems worse than ever, constantly breaking and significantly worse than 1-3 decades ago.
You think the software around today is worse than software in the late 90s?
I guess my experience is different than yours - and I'm providing evidence.
> But every time I turn around, someone's claiming nobody gets any value from these tools
Really? I find agreement that gullible users get something they value, even if it is worthless.
This is true, but likely happening in talk therapy too with overly sycyphantic therapists
Sure, but there is a marked difference between a therapist and an LLM Chatbot: you can't talk to your therapist for +4h a day, at any time convenient to yourself. It's also not a guarantee you're going to hit upon a therapist that is like that, versus a product that is very literally intended to maximise your usage of it.
Any good therapist should train you in the methods of coping with and eventually overcoming your problem. This boils down to private grad+postgrad psychology/psychiatry course, because to cope+overcome you have to understand what's going on and there is no one who can do shit but you yourself.
But that is only ~half of job. The other half consists of gently reminding one that not all is lost yet.
There is no LLM that can do this and I think there never will be.
a therapist should, if they follow their training, not be a sycophant whatsoever. CBT, for eg, is a multi-step process including Socratic self-dialogue, reframing practices, etc to guide the person towards the development of insight and healthier coping mechanisms