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Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)
101–110 of 117 posts
Re: Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why are you changing the subject? What does your new subject have to do with the fact that the previous arguments were all pretty much baloney? Pointing to a problem that has not been solved is completely unrelated to the miraculous things that have been solved. And I thought you'd decided (three times now) that I'm not worth talking to?
Because I find what you have to say interesting. Sorry about that, I'll try to consider you less interesting.
If you'd like to change the subject I'd be happy to do so.
You're right - there are still many problems that have not been solved by AI. AI has not found a cheap and effective way to turn lead into gold, as an example.
But I sorta think that's a silly metric. There are always going to be unsolved problems for any system. The interesting metric is how many problems have been solved - and how surprising are they.
Like I said above - a decompiler that produces semantic understanding of the machine code it's looking at (this address is score; this address is how many lives are left; this address is...) would have been considered literally impossible before LLMs. Today, I was able to implement such a system in under two weeks.
That's an impressive result. If you disagree, I'd love to discuss it with you.
Re: Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because I find what you have to say interesting. Sorry about that, I'll try to consider you less interesting.
If you'd like to change the subject I'd be happy to do so. You're right - there are still many problems that have not been solved by AI. AI has not found a cheap and effective way to turn lead into gold, as an example. But I sorta think that's a silly metric. There are always going to be unsolved problems for any system. The interesting metric is how many problems have been solved - and how surprising are they. Like…
I'm aware of what they're good at. I got claude 4.6 to run linux as a native postgres module inside linux inside postgres inside linux inside postgres on a mac. It was impressive then and it's still impressive. IOW, I really think you're misinterpreting my comments as significantly more inflammatory than I actually mean. And you seem to be taking it personally.
But what I'm interested in is in the edges of their failure modes because those failure modes prop up frequently in pernicious ways. For a similar reason that I want to understand the edges of my own intellectual failure modes by regularly challenging myself. This conversation is an example of that.
It seems like you're just not interested in discussing the edges and failure modes. You call that a "silly metric", I call it, "understanding your tools".
Re: Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you'd like to change the subject I'd be happy to do so. You're right - there are still many problems that have not been solved by AI. AI has not found a cheap and effective way to turn lead into gold, as an example. But I sorta think that's a silly metric. There are always going to be unsolved problems for any system. The interesting metric is how many problems have been solved - and how surprising are they. Like…
I'm aware of what they're good at. I got claude 4.6 to run linux as a native postgres module inside linux inside postgres inside linux inside postgres on a mac. It was impressive then and it's still impressive. IOW, I really think you're misinterpreting my comments as significantly more inflammatory than I actually mean. And you seem to be taking it personally. But what I'm interested in is in the edges of their fail…
My primary interest in these threads is to debunk the claims that "AI is a hoax".
Granted, that's not exactly the claim these days, the claim's goalposts shift constantly, as these things do.
But if you go back to the top of this conversation - I asked why people aren't seeing the miracles (not cute tricks - useful things that simply were impossible before) and I was largely met with the response "you're delusional if you see miracles."
But the thing is - I am not. So I am going to continue arguing that case every time I see a version of it.
So no, I'm not interested in exploring other issues. Sorry. Yours in particular I find as interesting as discussing whether Microsoft Word can be used to edit video files. Not interesting.
But if you need validation, here it is: there are many problems that AI cannot solve. Of course there are. There always will be.
Re: Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm aware of what they're good at. I got claude 4.6 to run linux as a native postgres module inside linux inside postgres inside linux inside postgres on a mac. It was impressive then and it's still impressive. IOW, I really think you're misinterpreting my comments as significantly more inflammatory than I actually mean. And you seem to be taking it personally. But what I'm interested in is in the edges of their fail…
My primary interest in these threads is to debunk the claims that "AI is a hoax". Granted, that's not exactly the claim these days, the claim's goalposts shift constantly, as these things do. But if you go back to the top of this conversation - I asked why people aren't seeing the miracles (not cute tricks - useful things that simply were impossible before) and I was largely met with the response "you're delusional i…
Great! Glad you were able to take off your rose tinted glasses, even for a moment. Peace.
Re: Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Recognise it is simply a zero-intelligence search engine I think that this highlights the problem: it's not even a proper search engine. If it were, it would find existing material and link to it. The chatbot instead re-elaborates the message. This is different enough to have legal consequences (see the recent German ruling). By squashing everything together, one loses the ability to evaluate sources, including the…
Plus this rot has extended to true search engines too. A recent Google blurb on new "AI" features of Google web search kicks of with the following misrep: "The goal of Search has always been simple: to help you ask anything on your mind" https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/search/s... And they are also perverting search results, if this is to be believed: "The Google AI Mode recognizes search intent b…
Well, Sundar Pichai just left. In some "Why Google search got worse" threads, people who worked on search mentioned him championing predictable results without too much magic. Seems like it's mostly magic now.
Re: Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm aware of what they're good at. I got claude 4.6 to run linux as a native postgres module inside linux inside postgres inside linux inside postgres on a mac. It was impressive then and it's still impressive. IOW, I really think you're misinterpreting my comments as significantly more inflammatory than I actually mean. And you seem to be taking it personally. But what I'm interested in is in the edges of their fail…
My primary interest in these threads is to debunk the claims that "AI is a hoax". Granted, that's not exactly the claim these days, the claim's goalposts shift constantly, as these things do. But if you go back to the top of this conversation - I asked why people aren't seeing the miracles (not cute tricks - useful things that simply were impossible before) and I was largely met with the response "you're delusional i…
HEH. Not sure why you're implying I have changed my position. I said as much above and would have said the same at any time. I don't think it's controversial in the least that there are things AI can't do.
Do you have a weird need to reframe this so you can feel like you won? You shouldn't do that. It's not healthy.
Re: Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)
#108In my case, I need my AI to be sycophantic because most of my contrarian ideas are correct. So it's a waste of my time and tokens when the AI keeps making weak arguments which I proceed to destroy one by one. Usually, what happens is it tries to debunk my statement but then I offer a rebuttal to all of its points, it then concedes to all of my points but each time it offers a new partial rebuttal... Which I proceed t…
Sounds like you want a sycophant because you use words like "crush" and "destroy" to describe counterpoints to your arguments (please don't destroy me.)
I used these words jokingly and also, I don't mean sycophant in a literal sense. I mean more in an AI context as a kind of config/slider you can dial up or down to make it more collaborative or combative.
If I'm knowledgeable in a niche over which there is no mainstream consensus or it's disorganized, and I want to reason more about this topic, I need the AI in the rabbit hole with me. I don't need it to question the existence of the rabbit hole I'm in. Otherwise all of its arguments sound like gaslighting; asking me to disbelieve my eyes and decades of experience about basic ideas which I've already researched many times and proven not to work (at least with high confidence).
For me this happens with some niches of software engineering and architecture and I have lots of physical proof of working, secure, maintainable software to back up my position.
Also, when I say that "most of my contrarian ideas are correct" it's with the caveat that I don't tend to adopt or hold onto contrarian ideas that are easily proven to be incorrect. I'm referring to the kinds of niche ideas which most non-experts would not feel confident to make strong arguments about but AI will.
Re: Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm seeing more examples of you saying you're providing evidence than of you actually providing evidence. So far I've heard a single anecdote about what you did. That's a pretty far cry from the "evidence" you claim to have dropped on multiple comments.
LOL. Providing a counter example is far from just an anecdote.
What counter example did you provide? You said you had tried a few projects. You can just claim that without any evidence. I have no reason to believe you're not lying.
You could say "I used AI to cure cancer." This isn't a counter example, because there's no evidence for it.
Re: Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
My primary interest in these threads is to debunk the claims that "AI is a hoax". Granted, that's not exactly the claim these days, the claim's goalposts shift constantly, as these things do. But if you go back to the top of this conversation - I asked why people aren't seeing the miracles (not cute tricks - useful things that simply were impossible before) and I was largely met with the response "you're delusional i…
Great! Glad you were able to take off your rose tinted glasses, even for a moment. Peace.
Oh hey - the timer finally kicked off. In case you didn't see my reply - here you go:
HEH. Not sure why you're implying I have changed my position. I said as much above and would have said the same at any time. I don't think it's controversial in the least that there are things AI can't do.
Do you have a weird need to reframe this so you can feel like you won? You shouldn't do that. It's not healthy.