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Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)

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Re: Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)

#111

Post by inquirerGeneral »

mock-possum wrote: post #98
kazinator wrote: post #66

I have an alternative view which is that sycophancy erodes trust in AI, from those who are not seeking validation from a machine, but information or advice. If you're looking for advice in a situation where you are not sure of what the correct choices are, you will find LLM chat AI to go in circles. It says one thing. Something is dodgy about it, so you raise a tentative objection (as a non-expert). The thing does a…

This rings far truer for me. I don’t understand the psychosis of somehow allowing LLM responses to have an emotional impact on you, to make you think or believe a certain thing, to the extent that you blow up your own life over it - thank god I don’t have whatever flaw others have that make them ridiculously vulnerable to that. One key point is that - “pick any topic where people disagree” - most knowledge-seeking I…

[dead]

Re: Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)

#112

Post by tonyedgecombe »

layla5alive wrote: post #93
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learnt a long time ago that most people don't want their problems solved, they just want to vent.

You say that like its entirely a bad thing. "They want to vent" :- "they want to be heard" :- "they want to be understood" :- "they want to know they are understood" :- "they want to feel they matter to and are safe with the people they value"

It was difficult to grasp for someone with an engineering mentality. Why would you not want to fix the problem you are complaining about?

Re: Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)

#113

Post by qarl2 »

Planktonne wrote: post #23
qarl2 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we are noticing it. Are you not? I've shipped three software projects in the last two months. I shipped zero in the preceding year. Right now I'm building a system to decompile MAME ROM games into idiomatic JavaScript. It completes one game in about 3 days - complete with extensive commenting. I started it about 2 weeks ago. I'm not sure "EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED" but if you're not seeing dramatic change, I sus…

> if you're not seeing dramatic change, I suspect you're not looking If the people claiming that everything has changed were even a fraction as productive as they think, then it would be visible even to people who weren't looking. As it is, a lot of people are actively looking but still not seeing it.

I'd love for HN to explain why I was flagged here for answering:

> If the people claiming that everything has changed were even a fraction as productive as they think, then it would be visible even to people who weren't looking.

with:

> If you can't see this - you should probably get your eyes checked.

He is clearly suggesting I am delusional about my productivity gains, and I'm the one who gets flagged.

I daresay I'm noticing a bias in the moderation.

Re: Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)

#114

Post by chaps »

qarl2 wrote: post #110
chaps wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thanks!

Re: Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)

#115

Post by qarl2 »

xracy wrote: post #109
qarl2 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Agreed.

Which is why I provided a link to a the source of one such project above. I have several projects in that Github account if you need more.

Perhaps you didn't see it.

Re: Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)

#116

Post by ranger_danger »

kittikitti wrote: post #95

I took this advice personally, where people denounced sycophants, so I stopped affirming them. I became a huge asshole and everyone around me started reacting very, very negatively. My conclusion is that this is a huge distraction and people honestly highly prefer sycophants.

What makes you think those people are aware of and believe those people to be sycophants in the first place? It could just as easily be that their thinking is much simpler than that and they prefer people who suck up to them, without even thinking about there being a possible ulterior motive.

Re: Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)

#117

Post by accountrequired »

almostdeadguy wrote: post #30
pwdisswordfishq wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a pretty overdone joke at this point, don't you think?

You're right to push back. And honestly, this reframes the entire thing.

That was spot on!

Re: Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)

#118

Post by salawat »

qarl2 wrote: post #69
xracy wrote: post #63

Earlier 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.

Repo or GTFO, I believe the commenter is saying.

Re: Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)

#119

Post by layla5alive »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #112
layla5alive wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that like its entirely a bad thing. "They want to vent" :- "they want to be heard" :- "they want to be understood" :- "they want to know they are understood" :- "they want to feel they matter to and are safe with the people they value"

It was difficult to grasp for someone with an engineering mentality. Why would you not want to fix the problem you are complaining about?

Often times, they want to fix it themselves, they're just not ready to yet. And in the interim, they want to feel seen, understood, validated, safe.
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