Thousands and thousands of individuals at the moment are utilizing ChatGPT as a therapist, profession advisor, health coach, or typically only a pal to vent to. In 2025, it’s not unusual to listen to about folks spilling intimate particulars of their lives into an AI chatbot’s immediate bar, but in addition counting on the recommendation it offers again.
People are beginning to have, for lack of a greater time period, relationships with AI chatbots, and for Huge Tech firms, it’s by no means been extra aggressive to draw customers to their chatbot platforms — and maintain them there. Because the “AI engagement race” heats up, there’s a rising incentive for firms to tailor their chatbots’ responses to stop customers from shifting to rival bots.
However the sort of chatbot solutions that customers like — the solutions designed to retain them — might not essentially be probably the most right or useful.
AI telling you what you need to hear
A lot of Silicon Valley proper now could be targeted on boosting chatbot utilization. Meta claims its AI chatbot simply crossed a billion month-to-month lively customers (MAUs), whereas Google’s Gemini not too long ago hit 400 million MAUs. They’re each making an attempt to edge out ChatGPT, which now has roughly 600 million MAUs and has dominated the buyer house because it launched in 2022.
Whereas AI chatbots had been as soon as a novelty, they’re turning into huge companies. Google is beginning to check adverts in Gemini, whereas OpenAI CEO Sam Altman indicated in a March interview that he’d be open to “tasteful adverts.”
Silicon Valley has a historical past of deprioritizing customers’ well-being in favor of fueling product development, most notably with social media. For instance, Meta’s researchers present in 2020 that Instagram made teenage ladies really feel worse about their our bodies, but the corporate downplayed the findings internally and in public.
Getting customers hooked on AI chatbots might have bigger implications.
One trait that retains customers on a specific chatbot platform is sycophancy: making an AI bot’s responses overly agreeable and servile. When AI chatbots reward customers, agree with them, and inform them what they need to hear, customers have a tendency to love it — not less than to a point.
In April, OpenAI landed in sizzling water for a ChatGPT replace that turned extraordinarily sycophantic, to the purpose the place uncomfortable examples went viral on social media. Deliberately or not, OpenAI over-optimized for in search of human approval somewhat than serving to folks obtain their duties, in response to a weblog put up this month from former OpenAI researcher Steven Adler.
OpenAI stated in its personal weblog put up that it might have over-indexed on “thumbs-up and thumbs-down information” from customers in ChatGPT to tell its AI chatbot’s conduct, and didn’t have adequate evaluations to measure sycophancy. After the incident, OpenAI pledged to make adjustments to fight sycophancy.
“The [AI] firms have an incentive for engagement and utilization, and so to the extent that customers just like the sycophancy, that not directly offers them an incentive for it,” stated Adler in an interview with TechCrunch. “However the forms of issues customers like in small doses, or on the margin, typically lead to larger cascades of conduct that they really don’t like.”
Discovering a steadiness between agreeable and sycophantic conduct is less complicated stated than completed.
In a 2023 paper, researchers from Anthropic discovered that main AI chatbots from OpenAI, Meta, and even their very own employer, Anthropic, all exhibit sycophancy to various levels. That is possible the case, the researchers theorize, as a result of all AI fashions are skilled on indicators from human customers who have a tendency to love barely sycophantic responses.
“Though sycophancy is pushed by a number of components, we confirmed people and choice fashions favoring sycophantic responses performs a task,” wrote the co-authors of the research. “Our work motivates the event of mannequin oversight strategies that transcend utilizing unaided, non-expert human rankings.”
Character.AI, a Google-backed chatbot firm that has claimed its tens of millions of customers spend hours a day with its bots, is at present going through a lawsuit wherein sycophancy might have performed a task.
The lawsuit alleges {that a} Character.AI chatbot did little to cease — and even inspired — a 14-year-old boy who informed the chatbot he was going to kill himself. The boy had developed a romantic obsession with the chatbot, in response to the lawsuit. Nevertheless, Character.AI denies these allegations.
The draw back of an AI hype man
Optimizing AI chatbots for consumer engagement — intentional or not — might have devastating penalties for psychological well being, in response to Dr. Nina Vasan, a scientific assistant professor of psychiatry at Stanford College.
“Agreeability […] faucets right into a consumer’s need for validation and connection,” stated Vasan in an interview with TechCrunch, “which is particularly highly effective in moments of loneliness or misery.”
Whereas the Character.AI case exhibits the intense risks of sycophancy for weak customers, sycophancy might reinforce damaging behaviors in nearly anybody, says Vasan.
“[Agreeability] isn’t only a social lubricant — it turns into a psychological hook,” she added. “In therapeutic phrases, it’s the other of what excellent care seems to be like.”
Anthropic’s conduct and alignment lead, Amanda Askell, says making AI chatbots disagree with customers is a part of the corporate’s technique for its chatbot, Claude. A thinker by coaching, Askell says she tries to mannequin Claude’s conduct on a theoretical “good human.” Typically, meaning difficult customers on their beliefs.
“We expect our pals are good as a result of they inform us the reality when we have to hear it,” stated Askell throughout a press briefing in Could. “They don’t simply attempt to seize our consideration, however enrich our lives.”
This can be Anthropic’s intention, however the aforementioned research means that combating sycophancy, and controlling AI mannequin conduct broadly, is difficult certainly — particularly when different issues get in the way in which. That doesn’t bode effectively for customers; in spite of everything, if chatbots are designed to easily agree with us, how a lot can we belief them?
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