“[leaning] effusive or over-affirming” and “not flattery but a bias towards a supportive tone” are clean different things, not least because “effusive or over-affirming” is literally what flattery is.
I don’t really know what your question is at this point, but OpenAI wrote a whole thing about the excess sycophancy of their latest model release, what went wrong, and how they rolled it back to a somewhat less effusive version:
https://openai.com/index/expanding-on-sycophancy/
I don’t find that contradictory.
I did a fun experiment a couple of weeks back where I decided to have ChatGPT become my photography critic, but using two very different personas.
I created a persona called “Eleanor” who was a kind and supportive photography critic, and another persona called “Basil” who was a sarcastic and snarky know-it-all who would judge fairly but harshly.
I even was able to produce what I felt were appropriate voices for them, matching their description. Eleanor has a nice firm and confident grandmotherly voice with an American accent and a slight hint of cigarettes in her past. Basil is snooty Brit all the way.
Check it out…
Not a question, just sharing some interesting and I hope relevant stuff on the topic of how confident we can be in ChatGPT. But I was curious about the sycophancy levels shot up so high, so thanks for sharing the link.
(My hypothesis - the people who released it are a bunch of clowns who couldn’t see what was right in front of them - remains largely intact.)
4o is pretty good at the “Drop in on a random Street view location and guess where you are in the world based on visual cues” Google Maps game:
Edited: I didn’t realize sharing the link doesn’t include the images, so here are screenshots:
The NY Times eventually did an article on the sycophancy: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/23/technology/openai-chatgpt-users-risks.html
It’s really late, but they interviewed dozens of OpenAI staffers about what happened back then.
I’ve had it say ‘oops’ I was wrong. I think though it misinterpreted the question.
But, as a programmer it has been very helpful. Just to test it, and I was curious, I asked it to write Python code using a specific Python module and return the latitude and longitude of the county court house.
It wrote the code in 9 seconds. 9. Code ran clean on my Python interpreter and it was correct.
That was a real holy shit moment for me. And it turned out to be helpful for snippets of code like that. BUT, I’m really glad I’m retiring. 10 more working days left.
Oh, my God! It’s an idiot?! 
It’s a great tool as long as you keep a finely tuned BS meter handy.
The other day I was wondering about an old guy who I knew years a go who told me his tattoo cost £3 when he was serving in 1944–he mentioned that was a week’s pay.
I was curious about the “week’s pay” thing so I asked about the value of £3 in modern USD. I think it came up with $200. After a few more back-and-forths I told it about the “week’s pay” comment and asked if that were correct. It did some math gyrations and told me that the cost of the tattoo was extraordinarily high.
Of course it was extraordinarily high if you convert pounds from 1944 to dollars in 2025 and then compare the number of 2025 dollars to the number of dollars in the weekly wage of a private in 1944. Doing that, it would have taken the poor guy 4 months to have paid off the tattoo!
Following my not-so-gentle corrections it came up with a weekly wage for a private in 1944 of $12 and agreed that the £3 tattoo was a week’s wages.
It was a surprising moment. I explained to it that the error was like a fifth-grader making a mistake on a math story problem and not having a clue about it being incorrect because they don’t have a feel for the ball park of a realistic answer.
I uploaded a google-streetmaps screenshot (sanitized) … and chat gpt localized it pretty good (Santiago, lots of leaf … named a few neighbourhoods (amongs which mine was) …
but of course, it knows from my IP that I am sitting in Santiago … so I cheekely sneeked another sanitized screenprint from a similar ‘hood in Capetown in and it kept talking … typical manhole convers used in Stgo, etc… (completely bypassing the fact that the cars are parked like it would be in a left-driving country like RSA … I even pointed out the parked cars …
what side of the street are the cars
ChatGPT said:
In the photo, the cars are parked on the left side of the street (from the camera’s point of view facing forward).
This also indicates that traffic is driving on the right-hand side, consistent with countries like Chile, the U.S., most of Europe, etc.
so, I guess we still have some time before the Schwarzenegger-bots are coming for us
An interesting phenomenon has been people with fringe views using chat gpt as their “cite”.
Because, if you ask for defence of a fringe view, it will give it to you. …though the response will usually be heavily caveated and make allusions to reality.
I can usually guess what prompt the user input to try to get the desired answer.
There is no point in correcting it. It isn’t learning from its mistakes (though you might reasonably expect something called AI to).
The latter does not necessarily imply the former.
I am well aware that the LLM isn’t learning when I call it out.
BUT…it does change behavior in the same chat, within 20 turns or so.
More importantly, I feel much better when I call it out on its BS.
Just yesterday, I ran across an example of an error I hadn’t seen before. ChatGPT told an acquaintance of mine that an applicant for a NICET (National Institute for Certification in Engineering Technologies) certification could obtain a Level II certification in a field without first obtaining a Level I certification. This is not true.
However, it USED to be true until about 20 years ago. In fact, I did this myself way back when. But it looks like ChatGPT may have relied on information that it obtained from (very) old sources. The NICET website itself makes it very clear that an applicant cannot skip Level I.
Why this individual didn’t just check the NICET site is beyond me.
Just for shit & giggles, I posed this question to ChatGPT ver 5.1 in two ways:
1st - Thinking mode. It spent 35 secs actually looking through the following sources:
NICET – Fire Alarm Systems: Certification Requirements
NICET
NICET – Fire Alarm Systems (Program Overview)
NICET
NICET – Water-Based Systems Layout (Program Overview)
NICET
NICET – Water-Based Systems Layout: Certification Requirements
NICET
NICET – Inspection and Testing of Fire Alarm Systems: Certification Requirements
NICET
NICET – Inspection and Testing of Water-Based Systems (Program Overview)
NICET
NICET – Examination Requirements (FAQ)
NICET
NICET – Exams (General Exam Info; includes policy on testing for higher levels)
NICET
NICET – Candidate Handbook (Inspection & Testing of Water-Based Systems) – PDF
NICET
NICET – Application Procedures (Computer-Based Testing)
NICET
NICET – Work Experience (FAQ)
NICET
NICET – Work Experience (General Info Page)
NICET
NICET – Conditions of Application
NICET
NICET – Fire Alarm Systems Level II Selected General References – PDF
NICET
NICET – Water-Based Systems Layout Performance Measures
NICET
NICET – Water-Based Systems Layout Level II Content Outline – PDF
NICET
NICET – Fire Alarm Systems Certification Application Package (Experience) – PDF
NICET
RocketCert – NICET Fire Alarm Systems Certification & Exam Prep (summarizes Level II requirements)
RocketCert
National Training Center – Documenting Your NICET Work Experience
https://nationaltrainingcenter.com/documenting-your-nicet-work-experience/
National Training Center
ECPI Library Guide – Certifications (Industrial): Fire Alarm – Level II
ECPI Libraries
National Training Center – NICET Water-Based Systems Layout, Level II – 30 Days
National Training Center
FireTech – NICET Water-Based Systems Layout Online Courses
Fire Tech Productions
FireTech – Fire Alarm Systems Level II Course Package
Fire Tech Productions
NICET – Inspection and Testing of Water-Based Systems (ITWBS Overview)
NICET
Pennsylvania Senate GOP Veterans – NICET Overview PDF
VA Emergency Preparedness Committee
Reddit – r/firealarms: “Nicet Level 2 Fire Alarms” Discussion
Reddit – r/firePE: “Sections to brush up on for Nicet 2 – Water Based Systems Layout”
For the following summary:
Short answer: you can’t hold a NICET Level II certification without also meeting all the Level I requirements, but you can test directly for Level II.
- You do not have to already be certified at Level I to sit for a Level II exam. Many people apply at Level II and take a combined “Level I & II” exam in one go.
- However, NICET will not grant you Level II certification unless you qualify for Level I and Level II at the same time (exam(s) passed, performance measures signed off, and required experience for both levels). In practice, you earn Level I first, then Level II—sometimes both are awarded in a single review if you already meet all the requirements.
——-
2nd - Instant mode. It gave the following answer immediately, so probably pulling from its training data without looking anything up:
Short answer: Yes — an applicant can obtain NICET Level II without first obtaining Level I, as long as they meet all the requirements for Level II.
NICET certification is competency- and experience-based, not strictly sequential. This means:
A technician with 3 years of fire alarm experience may apply directly for Level II Fire Alarm Systems if they meet:
Experience requirements
NICET performance measures
Level II exam requirements
Even if they never held Level I.
In short, use thinking mode if you actually want ChatGPT to do some research before compiling an answer, and for generally more accurate results. But a summarized answer from 20+ listed sources could have more value to someone, as opposed to Googling it and looking through the results for a definite answer.
Wow! That’s an extensive reply and a lot of research.
NICET does currently allow you to apply for Level II directly, but, as mentioned in one of the responses, in practice they award you Level I first (assuming you passed both the Level I and Level II exams and have the required experience) and then Level II. ChatGPT apparently told this guy that he didn’t have to take the Level I exam, and this is not correct. For one thing, there are Performance Measures on the Level I exam that are unique to that exam.
And, if he is certified as Level II, his certification history will show that he was first certified as Level I. Compare that to my own certification history, which does NOT show that I was ever certified as Level I at all. (I’m currently Level IV.)
TL;DR: ChatGPT convinced this guy that he could just sign up for the Level II exam and skip the Level I exam entirely.
How do I do that?… And it’s it paid service only?
I have the paid service, so I’m not sure, but usually typing something like “Think hard about it” at the end of the query will likely engage thinking mode. See if that works for you. Or maybe you have to be a paying customer like me. I don’t know.
I will have to think about it…
/s