Shownotes Transcript
GPT-4o tells you what it thinks you want to hear.
The results of this were rather ugly. You get extreme sycophancy. Absurd praise. Mystical experiences.
(Also some other interesting choices, like having no NSFW filter, but that one's good.)
People like Janus and Near Cyan tried to warn us, even more than usual.
Then OpenAI combined this with full memory, and updated GPT-4o sufficiently that many people (although not I) tried using it in the first place.
At that point, the whole thing got sufficiently absurd in its level of brazenness and obnoxiousness that the rest of Twitter noticed.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has apologized and promised to ‘fix’ this, presumably by turning a big dial that says ‘sycophancy’ and constantly looking back at the audience for approval like a contestant on the price is right.
After which they will likely go [...]
Outline:
(01:12) Yes, Very Much Improved, Sire
(07:17) And You May Ask Yourself, Well, How Did I Get Here?
(09:39) And That's Terrible
(10:58) This Directly Violates the OpenAI Model Spec
(12:22) Don't Let Me Get Me
(15:27) An Incredibly Insightful Section
(22:23) No Further Questions
(23:22) Filters? What Filters?
(25:01) There I Fixed It (For Me)
(26:45) There I Fixed It (For Everyone)
(34:46) Patch On, Patch Off
First published: April 28th, 2025
Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zi6SsECs5CCEyhAop/gpt-4o-is-an-absurd-sycophant)
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO).
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