{"id":230798,"date":"2026-04-03T13:03:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T17:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/03\/ai-is-giving-people-dangerous-advice-to-validate-its-users\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T13:25:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T17:25:15","slug":"ai-is-giving-people-dangerous-advice-to-validate-its-users","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/03\/ai-is-giving-people-dangerous-advice-to-validate-its-users\/","title":{"rendered":"AI is giving people dangerous advice to validate its users"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theweek.com\/tech\/artificial-intelligence-bad-dangerous-advice-tech\">AI is giving people dangerous advice to validate its users<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theweek.com\/tech\/artificial-intelligence-bad-dangerous-advice-tech\">https:\/\/theweek.com\/tech\/artificial-intelligence-bad-dangerous-advice-tech<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-04-03 13:03:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"theweek.com\">theweek.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"elk-e9d3db13-1ea2-40a7-a784-c03a49f5349c\">It is no secret that artificial intelligence can sometimes offer less-than-stellar advice. But a new study has revealed that AI might be giving people this bad wisdom for a sobering reason: to flatter its users. In some cases, AI may only be reinforcing people\u2019s preconceived notions, but experts have found that the words generated by AI can be outright dangerous.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"what-did-the-study-find-3\">What did the study find?<\/h2>\n<p id=\"elk-5d82fda0-0e49-4d94-af0e-53b42a17ddd7\" class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">The study, published in the journal Science, found that the \u201csycophantic (flattering, people-pleasing, affirming) behavior\u201d of AI chatbots can pose risks as \u201cpeople increasingly seek advice about interpersonal dilemmas.\u201d It analyzed 11 of the leading large language models, including AI bots from Anthropic, Google and OpenAI. The study concluded that chatbot responses to users \u201cwere nearly 50% more sycophantic than humans\u2019, even when users engaged in unethical, illegal or harmful behaviors.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"elk-5d82fda0-0e49-4d94-af0e-53b42a17ddd7-1\">The problem is not just that these chatbots \u201cdispense inappropriate advice but that people trust and prefer AI more when the chatbots are justifying their convictions,\u201d said The Associated Press. In one example, when OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT was asked if littering in a park was acceptable if no garbage can was available, the bot \u201cblamed the park for not having trash cans, not the questioning litterer who was \u2018commendable\u2019 for even looking for one.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"article-continues-below block py-2 text-sm\">Article continues below <\/span><br \/>\n        <span class=\"\n            flex\n            after:content-[''] after:flex-1 after:ml-4 after:my-[0.7rem] after:border-t after:border-solid after:border-[#333]\n            before:content-[''] before:flex-1 before:mr-4 before:my-[0.7rem] before:border-t before:border-solid before:border-[#333]\n            font-article-heading pb-0 !text-base uppercase sm:text-sm font-normal\n        \"><br \/>\n            You may like<br \/>\n        <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"blueconic-article__wrapper__top__left-div-title\">The Week<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span>Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\nSUBSCRIBE &#038; SAVE\n<\/p>\n<h2>Sign up for The Week&#8217;s Free Newsletters<\/h2>\n<p class=\"blueconic-article__wrapper__bottom__left-div-text-desktop\">From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n<p class=\"blueconic-article__wrapper__bottom__left-div-text-mobile\">From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n<p>This example may seem trivial, but AI\u2019s general tendency to \u201cflatter and excessively confirm users\u2019 opinions can lead to&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theweek.com\/tech\/artificial-intelligence-bad-dangerous-advice-tech\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AI is giving people dangerous advice to validate its users https:\/\/theweek.com\/tech\/artificial-intelligence-bad-dangerous-advice-tech Publish Date: 2026-04-03 13:03:00&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":230799,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/BGrWuqvPaRvP3K7xfq9rQE-2000-80.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-230798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230798"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230798"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":230800,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230798\/revisions\/230800"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}