AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#1

Post by oldfrenchfries » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 2:08 PM UTC

https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.14270

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aec8352

AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice
news.stanford.edu

Re: AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#2

Post by oldfrenchfries » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 2:09 PM UTC

This new Stanford study published on March 26, 2026 shows that AI models are sycophantic. They affirm the users position 49% more often than a human would.

The researchers found that when people use AI for relationship advice, they become 25% more convinced they are 'right' and significantly less likely to apologize or repair the connection.

Re: AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#3

Post by oldfrenchfries » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 2:33 PM UTC

There is a striking data visualization showing the breakup advice trend over 15 years on Reddit. You can see the "End relationship" line spike as AI and algorithmic advice take over:

https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1o87cy4/oc...

Re: AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#4

Post by falcor84 » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 2:40 PM UTC

oldfrenchfries wrote: post #3

There is a striking data visualization showing the breakup advice trend over 15 years on Reddit. You can see the "End relationship" line spike as AI and algorithmic advice take over: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1o87cy4/oc...

Isn't the fact that a person is asking an AI whether to leave their partner in its own an indication that they should?

EDIT: typo

Re: AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#5

Post by Sharlin » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 2:44 PM UTC

oldfrenchfries wrote: post #3

There is a striking data visualization showing the breakup advice trend over 15 years on Reddit. You can see the "End relationship" line spike as AI and algorithmic advice take over: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1o87cy4/oc...

More interesting, IMO, is the general trend that started long before LLMs. The fact that "dump them" is the standard answer to any relationship question is a meme by now. The LLMs appear to be doing exactly what one would expect them to be doing based on their training corpus.

Re: AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#6

Post by nomorewords » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 2:47 PM UTC

falcor84 wrote: post #4

oldfrenchfries wrote: post #3

There is a striking data visualization showing the breakup advice trend over 15 years on Reddit. You can see the "End relationship" line spike as AI and algorithmic advice take over: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1o87cy4/oc...

Isn't the fact that a person is asking an AI whether to leave their partner in its own an indication that they should? EDIT: typo

How is it an indication? I think people on here don't realize that most of the people don't think things through as much as (software) engineers

Re: AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#7

Post by deeg » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 2:48 PM UTC

I do find them cloying at times. I was using Gemini to iterate over a script and every time I asked it to make a change it started a bunch of responses with "that's a smart final step for this task! ...".

Re: AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#8

Post by 1970-01-01 » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 2:50 PM UTC

Sharlin wrote: post #5

oldfrenchfries wrote: post #3

There is a striking data visualization showing the breakup advice trend over 15 years on Reddit. You can see the "End relationship" line spike as AI and algorithmic advice take over: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1o87cy4/oc...

More interesting, IMO, is the general trend that started long before LLMs. The fact that "dump them" is the standard answer to any relationship question is a meme by now. The LLMs appear to be doing exactly what one would expect them to be doing based on their training corpus.

This is the correct take. The advice preceded the LLM boom. They were trained on the 'dump them' advice and proceeded to reinforce the take. So why did the relationship advice change dramatically? I speculate attribution to the disinformation campaigns during this time. They were and still are grossly underestimated.

Re: AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#9

Post by xiphias2 » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 2:51 PM UTC

Marc Andereseen has talked about the downside of RLHF: it's a specific group of liberal low income people in California who did the rating, so AI has been leaning their culture.

I think OpenAI tried to diversify at least the location of the raters somewhat, but it's hard to diversify on every level.

Re: AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#10

Post by hnfong » Sat, Mar 28, 2026, 2:51 PM UTC

nomorewords wrote: post #6

falcor84 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the fact that a person is asking an AI whether to leave their partner in its own an indication that they should? EDIT: typo

How is it an indication? I think people on here don't realize that most of the people don't think things through as much as (software) engineers

In my local(?) community (like in my city, not my industry) there is a saying "if you had to ask for relationship advice, then you probably should break up".

There is some rationale to that. People tend to hold onto relationships that don't lead anywhere in fear of "losing" what they "already have". It's probably a comfort zone thing. So if one is desperate enough to ask random strangers online about a relationship, it's usually biased towards some unresolvable issue that would have the parties better of if they break up.