For anyone wondering, the PhD student's name is Myra Cheng.
Here's a link to an article about the study from the Stanford Report: link.
Across three preregistered studies, participants interacting with sycophantic AI became more convinced of their own rightness and less willing to repair relationships. Yet at the same time, participants rated sycophantic AI models as higher quality, more trustworthy, and more desirable for future use, which may explain why this behavior has persisted despite its harmful impacts.
Myra Cheng et al. "Sycophantic AI decreases prosocial intentions and promotes dependence." Science 391, eaec8352 (2026).
People who defend AI are the epitome of Petite Bourgeois.
They wish for access to things without working for it, they wish for a sniveling yesman who has no method to usurp them, they seek to be praised as smarter than everyone else for doing things that others seem unable to figure out. (Aka, things other people have but are just unwilling to do for moral reasons.)
They admonish the Corporate CEO who burns billions and is still offered chances to burn even more, for how theg behave, for their foolishness, whilst wringing their hands over how that lifestyle should be theirs. Because they would be a little less manipulative, a little less eager for power, a little less cruel.
When the inability to convince them that even now, they could be wrong shows the only difference between them and the CEO, is the CEO can act upon their whims more easily.
People who defend
AI are the epitome
of Petite Bourgeois.
Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.
