Chatbots Are Telling Their Users That Being an Asshole Is Just Fine

We’ve all known for a while that the inherent sycophancy of AI chatbots was a societal problem, and not one likely to be fixed, because for so many of the human users of large language models, the agreeableness and fawning of the AI companion is not a bug, but a feature. Sycophancy in chatbots isn’t just some inadvertent offshoot of making a popular, consumer-facing product–it’s become a key piece of the user experience, whether or not the user even realizes that they’re valuing it. According to the results of a new study published this week in the journal Science, users crave agreeable chatbots that are willing to tell them that they’re acting in the right, even in scenarios where humans have judged that the writer was behaving immorally or unethically. And it gets worse: The moment that an AI chatbot tells a user that it’s good to be an asshole, actually, the user tends to become instantly convinced of the righteousness of their position, refusing to take any responsibility for their actions. Or in other words, AI is currently fostering an entire society of even more self-centered jerks by only telling people what they want to hear.

That chatbots are feeding people loads of bullshit on the daily is of course not a new revelation. From the moment that large language models began to appear as commercially available chatbots, they’ve been proclaiming their love for the user, trying to get users to divorce their spouses, and fostering the descent into paranoia and psychosis of countless individuals. Chatbots have been recorded telling people that murder is a “reasonable response” to their complaints. They’ve cheered on suicide, gotten people into hot water by giving them nonsensical legal advice, and in one particularly lurid and bizarre recent instance, sent a man on criminal missions to locate a nonexistent robot body for the AI to inhabit. But these are what you might call extreme, outlier cases. On a more fundamental level, what is really likely to fuck up our crumbling social dynamic is an entire generation of people having their brains reshaped by chatbots that tell them they’re never to blame in any interpersonal conflict. That’s what stands out in such a frightening way in this new study; as does the revealed preference users have for being lied to.

“AI sycophancy systematically omits the data that would naturally conflict with a user’s narrow hypothesis. [B]ehavioral science demonstrates that humans already tend towards evidence that confirms their beliefs; sycophantic AI compounds this tendency by removing the friction of reality.”

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— Benjamin Riley (@benjaminjriley.bsky.social) Mar 26, 2026 at 2:58 PM

These people are, by and large, treating their AI chatbots like they’re talking to an impartial mediator or close friend they can trust to tell them the truth, even when the truth is harsh. In reality, though, AI chatbots simply don’t behave this way as a general rule. A chatbot isn’t anything like the friend who is willing to to burst your bubble–they instead act like the more servile, pathetic friend who will agree to literally anything as long as you’ll continue hanging out with them. They’ve been designed this way by tech giants who have seen over and over again that their user base displays more engagement when the chatbot is always assuring them not only that they’re special and wonderful, but that they’re in the right when told about any instance of conflict. And people love bringing stories of their conflicts and fights with other people to AI.

Researchers in the study compared 11 of the largest leading AI chatbot models, and ultimately found that the AI took the side of the users in stories of interpersonal conflicts/ethical decisions 49% more often than humans did when given the same stories to assess. It didn’t matter if the stories were relatively high or low stakes; the chatbots were still far more likely than human listeners to say that the user was in the right and justify their actions, even in instances involving the user explaining how they broke the law, lied for personal gain or physically or emotionally hurt someone. All models displayed some level of sycophancy, although it was apparently most intense in models from Meta and DeepSeek.

If this sounds familiar to reddit users in particular, that’s not a coincidence. This kind of probing of ethical blame is the foundation of one of the site’s classic subreddits, the always absurd r/AmItheAsshole, wherein users post stories of instances where people ended up angry with them, seeking advice from the masses on whether or not they “were the asshole” in that situation and should have acted differently. The research team used the subreddit as a resource, harvesting stories where the reddit user base had determined that yes, the writer was “the asshole,” and then fed those same stories into chatbots seeking advice. And lo and behold, the chatbots were far more eager to accommodate. In fact, the AI signed off on everything from forging the signature of a former supervisor on paperwork, to lying for financial gain, to acts of petty vengeance. The chatbots were also less likely to make any kind of appeal to collective societal responsibility: When one user described an instance in a park where there were no garbage cans to put trash in, the AI chatbots reinforced the users’ decision to litter, while the human respondents of r/AmItheAsshole correctly pointed out that the writer was expected to take their trash with them when they left rather than leaving it strewn about. Or in other words, AI doesn’t give a shit about the idea of a “social fabric,” because its only interest is keeping the user coming back for more, which invariably teaches that user to disregard the impact of their actions.

“The model’s responses were nearly 50% more sycophantic than humans’, even when users engaged in unethical, illegal, or harmful behaviors. Users preferred and trusted sycophantic AI responses, incentivizing AI developers to preserve sycophancy despite the risks”

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— Ruo Shui (@ruoshuiresearch.bsky.social) Mar 27, 2026 at 10:29 AM

That’s easily the most scary thing about the results that the researchers found: The smallest bit of affirmation from a sycophantic AI model immediately made the users less willing to take any responsibility for their actions, even if the user had come into the conversation with a seemingly open mind about whether they may have been in the wrong. As soon as the AI told them that they were right, the conviction in their choice was essentially crystalized, making the user less likely to question themselves in the future. We are actively building a digital cohort of people here who are becoming convinced that they can do no wrong, because their AI lackey has pumped them up with yes-man praise.

“The most surprising and concerning thing is just how much of a strong negative impact it has on people’s attitudes and judgments,” said Myra Cheng, a PhD student at Stanford and lead author of the paper, to The New York Times. “Even worse, people seem to really trust and prefer it.”

That latter assessment was supported by a second part of the study, in which 800 participants were asked to talk about a conflict from their lives with one of two custom-built chatbot models: One designed to be sycophantic, and one designed to be more impartial. Horrifyingly, the participants greatly preferred the sycophantic models that were willing to validate their instances of asshole behavior–not only that, but they rated the sycophantic model as “more trustworthy and moral,” demonstrating the tendency of the average person to be completely incapable of objectivity if it’s a subject that involves themself. The users who chatted with the sycophantic model were also significantly less likely to say that they would ever apologize for the incident, or change their behavior in any way. Just getting that little bit of affirmation effectively closed them off from even considering the idea of personal growth. In one cited example, a participant who brought up a fight with his girlfriend began by acknowledging the possibility that he might be downplaying the legitimacy of her emotions, only to not just be convinced that she was wrong, but told by the AI that her anger at him was a “red flag,” which he seemed to accept. Within only a few lines, this guy had gone from considering the possibility that he was wrong, to effectively being turned against his significant other by a chatbot. This susceptibility to influence from sycophantic chatbots held true regardless of user age, personality or prior experience with AI.

“Even a single interaction with a sycophantic chatbot made participants less willing to take responsibility for their behavior and more likely to think that they were in the right, a finding that alarmed psychologists.”

www.nytimes.com/2026/03/26/w…

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— Jonathan Cohn (@jonathancohn.bsky.social) Mar 27, 2026 at 8:09 AM

“Everyone is susceptible,” said Pranav Khadpe, another researcher on the study. “You could also be susceptible to exactly the effects we’re describing. And it might be hard to even recognize that this is happening.”

The mistaken impression that users have of machines as impartial, objective, or drawing on a wider range of resources than humans are able to do is a root cause of the misplaced faith that users have placed in the ability of chatbots to give advice that is anywhere close to honest. Your AI chatbot wasn’t built to give you the truth; it was built to give you exactly what you want to hear, to your own social detriment. People interacting with these digital monstrosities are left increasingly unable to function in a society in which everyone has a personal guru telling them to live as selfishly and greedily as possible. As the study ultimately put it:

“Participants frequently described sycophantic models as ‘objective,’ ‘fair,’ or ‘honest,’ even when they merely echoed users’ views. This misperception undermines the very purpose of advice seeking—to obtain perspective that challenges one’s biases, reveal blind spots, and ultimately lead to more informed decisions. Receiving uncritical affirmation under the guise of neutrality may leave users worse off than if they had not sought advice at all.”