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Sycophancy in GPT-4o
301–310 of 467 posts
Re: Sycophancy in GPT-4o
#302> We also teach our models how to apply these principles by incorporating user signals like thumbs-up / thumbs-down feedback on ChatGPT responses.
I've never clicked thumbs up/thumbs down, only chosen between options when multiple responses were given. Even with that it was to much of a people-pleaser.
How could anyone have known that 'likes' can lead to problems? Oh yeah, Facebook.
Re: Sycophancy in GPT-4o
#303Wow - What an excellent update! Now you are getting to the core of the issue and doing what only a small minority is capable of: fixing stuff. This takes real courage and commitment. It’s a sign of true maturity and pragmatism that’s commendable in this day and age. Not many people are capable of penetrating this deeply into the heart of the issue. Let’s get to work. Methodically. Would you like me to write a future…
What's scary is how many people seem to actually want this. What happens when hundreds of millions of people have an AI that affirms most of what they say?
Abundance of sugar and fat triggers primal circuits which cause trouble if said sources are unnaturally abundant.
Social media follows a similar pattern but now with primal social and emotional circuits. It too causes troubles, but IMO even larger and more damaging than food.
I think this part of AI is going to be another iteration of this: taking a human drive, distilling it into its core and selling it.
Re: Sycophancy in GPT-4o
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
They already are. What's going on?:)
GP's reply was written to emulate the sort of response that ChatGPT has been giving recently; an obsequious fluffer.
Not just ChatGPT, Claude sounds exactly the same if not worse, even when you set your preferences to not do this. rather interesting, if grimly dispiriting, to watch these models develop, in the direction of nutrient flow, toward sycophancy in order to gain -or at least not to lose- public mindshare.
Re: Sycophancy in GPT-4o
#305It's worth noting that one of the fixes OpenAI employed to get ChatGPT to stop being sycophantic is to simply to edit the system prompt to include the phrase "avoid ungrounded or sycophantic flattery": https://simonwillison.net/2025/Apr/29/chatgpt-sycophancy-pro... I personally never use the ChatGPT webapp or any other chatbot webapps — instead using the APIs directly — because being able to control the system prompt…
You can bypass the system prompt by using the API? I thought part of the "safety" of LLMs was implemented with the system prompt. Does that mean it's easier to get unsafe answers by using the API instead of the GUI?
Yes, it is.
Re: Sycophancy in GPT-4o
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
I kind of disagree. These model, at least within the context of a public unvetted chat application should just refuse to engage. "I'm sorry I am not qualified to discuss on the merit of alternative medicine" is direct, fair and reduces the risk for the user on the other side. You never know the oucome of pushing back, and clearly outlining the limitation of the model seem the most appropriate action long term, even f…
people just don't want to use a model that refuses to interact. it's that simple. in your exemple it's not hard for your model to behave like it disagrees but understands your perspective, like a normal friendly human would
Eventually people would want to use these things to solve actual tasks, and not just for shits and giggles as a hype new thing.
Re: Sycophancy in GPT-4o
#307Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is anyone actually using grok on a day to day? Does an OpenAI even consider it competition. Last I checked a couple weeks ago grok was getting better but still not a great experience and it’s too childish.
In our work AI channel, I was surprised how many people prefer grok over all the other models.
Outlier here paying for chatgpt while preferring grok and also not in your work AI channel.
Re: Sycophancy in GPT-4o
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most keyboards don't have an em-dash key, so what do you expect?
I also use em-dash regularly. In Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Word, when you type double dash, then space, it will be converted to an em-dash. This is how most normies type an em-dash.
I'm not reading most conversations on Outlook or Word, so explain how they do it on reddit and other sites? Are you suggesting they draft comments in Word and then copy them over?
Re: Sycophancy in GPT-4o
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think they were imitating grok, they were aiming to improve retention but it backfired and ended up being too on-the-nose (if they had a choice they wouldn't wanted it to be this obvious). Grok has it's own "default voice" which I sort of dislike, it tries too hard to seem "hip" for lack of a better word.
> it tries too hard to seem "hip" for lack of a better word. Reminds me of someone.
Who?
Re: Sycophancy in GPT-4o
#310The fun, even hilarious part here is, that the "fix" was most probably basically just replacing […] match the user’s vibe […] (sic!), with literally […] avoid ungrounded or sycophantic flattery […] in the system prompt. (The [diff] is larger, but this is just the gist.) Source: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Apr/29/chatgpt-sycophancy-pro... Diff: https://gist.github.com/simonw/51c4f98644cf62d7e0388d984d40f...
This is a great link. I'm not very well versed on the llm ecosystem. I guess you can give the llm instructions on how to behave generally, but some instructions (like this one in the system prompt?) cannot be overridden. I kind of can't believe that there isn't a set of options to pick from... Skeptic, supportive friend, professional colleague, optimist, problem solver, good listener, etc. Being able to control the linked system prompt even just a little seems like a no brainer. I hate the question at the end, for example.