Tag Archives: sycophancy

OpenAI researcher quits over ChatGPT ads, warns of “Facebook” path

On Wednesday, former OpenAI researcher Zoë Hitzig published a guest essay in The New York Times announcing that she resigned from the company on Monday, the same day OpenAI began testing advertisements inside ChatGPT. Hitzig, an economist and published poet who holds a junior fellowship at the Harvard Society of Fellows, spent two years at… Read More »

OpenAI walks a tricky tightrope with GPT-5.1’s eight new personalities

On Wednesday, OpenAI released GPT-5.1 Instant and GPT-5.1 Thinking, two updated versions of its flagship AI models now available in ChatGPT. The company is wrapping the models in the language of anthropomorphism, claiming that they’re warmer, more conversational, and better at following instructions. The release follows complaints earlier this year that its previous models were… Read More »

Annoyed ChatGPT users complain about bot’s relentlessly positive tone

Owing to the aspirational state of things, OpenAI writes, “Our production models do not yet fully reflect the Model Spec, but we are continually refining and updating our systems to bring them into closer alignment with these guidelines.” In a February 12, 2025 interview, members of OpenAI’s model-behavior team told The Verge that eliminating AI… Read More »