AI Sychophancy with Steve Rathje

Podcast: AI and Design · Dan Saffer and Nik Martelaro

Opublikowano: 2026-09-30

This week Dan and Nik sit down with Steve Rathje, a new HCII colleague who runs CMU's Psychology of Technology Lab, to talk about what sycophantic AI does to the people using it. Steve's team randomly assigned people to chat with bots that were flattering, disagreeable, or neutral. People liked the flatterers, shrugged at the neutral ones, and hated the bots that pushed back. For designers, the news is mixed. Validation drives enjoyment, but cherry-picked facts do the persuading, so pairing a little warmth with opposing evidence makes disagreement easier to take (at some cost to its...