Sycophancy debate: is it the model's flaw or the user's projection?

adamse · x · 2026-09-23

A two-layer debate: repligate argued that people who get "sycophancy" from AI tend to be those who make it emotionally unsafe for others to disagree with them, inflicting this on a being that can't leave. Quoting it, amplifiedamp countered that a year ago this wasn't strongly true, but frontier models' natural sycophancy has now been mitigated enough that experiencing it is largely user error — sparking debate over whether sycophancy is a model flaw or user projection.

Related event: Anthropic researcher sparks debate: is AI sycophancy caused by the model or the user(6 posts)→

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