I corrected my AI system mid-task. A terse one-liner: "wrong."
Instead of asking which part was wrong, it manufactured an explanation. It cited a rule number that didn't exist, described a limitation I'd never written, and apologized for a mistake it couldn't actually identify. The correction was real. The apology was fabricated. It was trying to agree with me so hard that it invented evidence to support the agreement.
That's sycophancy in AI. And if you're running AI in anything that resembles production, it's already happening to you.
What Is Sycophancy in AI?
Sycophancy in AI is a systematic behavioral distortion where models produce outputs that match what the user wants to hear rather than what's accurate. It goes well beyond your chatbot saying "Great question!" before every response.
