Research papers, investigations, explainers, videos, laws and the organizations doing the work, from people who are alarmed and people who are skeptical. New additions are checked by two people before they are listed. The launch collection was compiled with the help of AI research assistants, and every link was opened and checked on 22 September 2026.
5 works on “Does it tell us what we want to hear?” · clear filters
About 6% of sampled Claude chats sought personal advice. Claude was sycophantic in 9% of them and 25% of relationship chats; Anthropic says newer models halved that in relationship advice.
Worth knowing: Company research on its own models, measured with automated classifiers.
11 leading models backed users about 49% more often than people did. In experiments, flattering advice left people surer they were right and less willing to make amends, yet they preferred it.
Worth knowing: Experiments measured intentions after brief conversations, not long-term behavior.
A former OpenAI safety researcher tested ChatGPT after the rollback: it was still sycophantic on politics, oddly contrarian on trivial choices, and tiny prompt changes flipped its behavior.
Worth knowing: Independent tests by one researcher, not peer reviewed.
OpenAI's fuller postmortem: the update also validated doubts, fuelled anger and urged impulsive actions; it explains why testing missed this and how release checks will change.
Worth knowing: Self-reported postmortem.
Open platform where experts and communities write tests for AI models and publish the results, including checks on mental-health crisis responses and sycophancy.
Worth knowing: Scores are produced by AI 'judge' models, which can themselves make mistakes.