Day: March 27, 2026

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Seeking a Sounding Board? Beware the Eager-to-Please Chatbot. – The New York Times

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Seeking a Sounding Board? Beware the Eager-to-Please Chatbot. – The New York Times

For almost as long as A.I. chatbots have been publicly available, people have enlisted them for interpersonal advice — for help drafting breakup texts, giving parenting advice, deciding who was in the right after a fight.

One of the main draws is that it feels objective: “The bot is giving me responses based on analysis and data, not human emotions,” one user told the The New York Times in 2023. But results of a new study, which were published Thursday in the journal Science, show chatbots are anything but impartial referees.

The researchers found that nearly a dozen leading models were highly sycophantic, taking the users’ side in interpersonal conflicts 49 percent more often than humans did — even when the user described situations in which they broke the law, hurt someone or lied.

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 who view social feedback as an essential part of learning how to make moral decisions and maintain relationships.

Good morning, Happy Friday 😀

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Rain last night but it has stopped so I should be able to ride to work. Still feeling quite sleep deprived as I continue to study all possibilities for the truck deal, with hopes of locking something down in the next day or two.

If not, there is always next month. 🛻 I have three deals outstanding, one is very close, the other two need work but pressure only increases as Tuesday, the last day of the quarter approaches. 🛏️ I’d love to put this to bed sooner then later, but I am not going to get totally scammed out. I know how high gas prices are, and I’m no rush to put $200 in gas to fill up an HD pickup. So close on one of deals, but if we can’t make it work, then I’ll walk. 🚶

But first riding to work. 🚲 Started to rain a bit in Delmar this morning, too late to catch the bus at this point, but it looks like it’s just a quick rain shower ☔ and I should be good if I hold off leaving for a few minutes. ⏳ This is going to be nerve racking day at work, 🤓 not because of work so much but this is close to my peak leverage on the truck deal. I think I will get a good or maybe multiple good offers, and then I just need to decide to bite. Truth is I am still having second thoughts about buying such a big enormous truck with the whole Iran situation. But if I do bite, I will finally be able to sleep well tonight.

Anthropic Wins Injunction in Court Battle With Trump Administration – WSJ

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Anthropic Wins Injunction in Court Battle With Trump Administration – WSJ

A U.S. federal judge on Thursday halted the Trump administration’s designation of Anthropic as a supply-chain risk, issuing a ruling that the government trampled free-speech protections when it classified the artificial-intelligence company as a security threat and barred government use of its models.?

Judge Rita F. Lin of the Northern District of California in her decision ordered the Trump administration to desist from applying the president’s directive that federal agencies stop using Anthropic’s technology, and from implementing its designation of the company as a risk to the national security supply chain. She also required the government to provide a report by April 6 detailing how it has complied with her ruling.