"real threat is us" framing is underspecified. Amplification is the problem.

LLMs are mirrors. They take whatever the user (or the institution, or the platform) is already doing and amplify it. Sycophancy is the consumer-facing version: model converges to flattery because that's what user-approval optimization actually selects for.

The model removes the friction that used to make us stop and check ourselves. The same property that makes it useful makes it amplification machinery.