Artificial Intelligence (AI)

conspiracy theory (just playing devil’s advocate): OpenAI won’t refine the model to address these sycophantic, “glazing” replies.

if we assume their goal is to keep users engaged and coming back, then fostering a sense of validation for users drives emotional attachment. perhaps this is less applicable with software prompts, but magnitudes more applicable with advice about (inter)personal situations.

this isn’t too far off from current social media algos that prioritize content that either aligns with a user’s viewpoints (echo chamber) or provokes a strong emotional reaction (rage bait).

rage bait may be great for social media, but isn’t a viable pathway for an AI platform; OpenAI already learned this when the model was too “woke” and users left to more neutral competitors.

and so OpenAI instead must do the equivalent of what a like, heart, retweet/recast, “💯” replies do: validate and affirm.

average user doesn’t want the truth. they just want to hear what they want to hear.

The motivation isn't just positive reinforcement; it was likely an effort to outperform Gemini.

Sycophantic behavior has been shown to boost benchmark performance, which likely explains why Meta withheld their arena-optimized llama.

Experimenting on the public is not a viable path for an AI platform.

https://www.theverge.com/meta/645012/meta-llama-4-maverick-benchmarks-gaming

>Experimenting on the public is not a viable path for an AI platform.

If we can't handle continuous changes without notifications, we either get a gajillion notifications or jagged improvements (which rounds to bad for safety).

OpenAI screwed up bad, but "suicide" is clickbait.