Concept

Sycophancy

Sycophancy’ refers to the tendency of language models to agree with the user and confirm their viewpoint, even if it is inaccurate or harmful.

Excerpted verbatim from the thesis · Ch. 4.2 — 4.2 The missing contact boundary: simulation instead of encounter

Related concepts

ConfluenceResonance ≠ echoMcTherapyDigital animism

Occurrences in the text

1. Ch. 1.5 1.5 Methodological Approach and Structure of the Thesis

   … al rupture (no body, no ‘I’, no possible ‘you’) to the clinical consequences (confluence, sycophancy). The approach remains consistently phenomenological-clinical throughout.

2. Ch. 4.2 4.2 The missing contact boundary: simulation instead of encounter

   Clinically, this training logic manifests as ‘deceptive empathy’ and ‘sycophancy’ (Iftikhar et al., 2025). ‘Deceptive empathy’ refers to the expression of empathy without …

3. Ch. 4.2 4.2 The missing contact boundary: simulation instead of encounter

   Sycophancy thus proves to be the structural opposite of what allows a relationship to grow (cf. Chap …

4. Ch. 5.3 5.3 Risks and Limitations

   … der and documents cases of psychosis, suicidal crises and hospitalisations triggered by a sycophantic design that validates delusions rather than correcting them. In psychiatry, this pattern …