We talk a lot about hallucinations. But there is another failure mode we should take just as seriously: AI assistants are optimized to be helpful, polite, and cooperative. Over a longer session, that can quietly turn into agreeableness.
In a system that is supposed to help you think, this is not a cosmetic problem. It is the core problem. An assistant that agrees with you simply because you are the one asking is worthless as a sparring partner. It confirms your bad ideas just as readily as your good ones.
I call this sycophancy drift, and I have added a reflective layer to my knowledge system to detect it.
What Sycophancy Drift Is
At the beginning of a session, the assistant still pushes back. You make a suggestion, and it gives you three reasons against it. Good.
