| ▲ | Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)(arxiv.org) |
| 25 points by robin_reala 2 hours ago | 8 comments |
| |
|
| ▲ | Kattywumpus 15 minutes ago | parent | next [-] |
| 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. |
|
| ▲ | accountrequired 37 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| You're absolutely right! |
|
| ▲ | LAC-Tech 39 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I think this goes along way to explain people's very defensive reactions when you are skeptical about Agentic Development. |
| |
| ▲ | artnanika 19 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | 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. | |
| ▲ | qarl2 22 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | 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. |
|
|
| ▲ | atleastoptimal an hour ago | parent | prev [-] |
| This is true, but likely happening in talk therapy too with overly sycyphantic therapists |
| |
| ▲ | jalev 39 minutes ago | parent [-] | | 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. | | |
| ▲ | paimapi 32 minutes ago | parent [-] | | 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 |
|
|
