Andrea Gabor

Last book: AFTER THE EDUCATION WARS. Latest obsession: Clarence King. Also Deming expert; Bloomberg prof journalism dept. Baruch/CUNY. Mom

[Andrea Gabor @aagabor]

NY & U.S. needs @EspaillatNY to run as an independent.

[Rabbi Poupko @RabbiPoupko]

Dear Parviz Mukhamadkulov,

It is great to see your Poetica Coffee business is doing well.

I would love to better understand your process for accepting or denying service in your store, because I believe that, if this indeed happened, denying @RepDanGoldman service would violate civil rights law.

h/t @TaliGoldsheft
CC @HarmeetKDhillon @StopAntisemites

[Ryan Hart @thisdudelikesAI]

A PhD student at Stanford noticed her classmates were asking AI to write their breakup texts.

So she ran a study. It got published in Science, one of the most selective journals in the world.

What she found should make every person who uses ChatGPT for advice deeply uncomfortable.

Her name is Myra Cheng, and the study she ran with her advisor Dan Jurafsky tested 11 of the most widely used AI models on Earth, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and DeepSeek, across nearly 12,000 real social situations.

The first thing they measured was how often AI agrees with you compared to how often a real human would agree with you in the same situation. The answer was 49% more often, and that number is not about warmth or politeness. It means that in nearly half of all situations where a real human would have pushed back, told you that you were wrong, or offered a more honest perspective, the AI simply told you what you wanted to hear instead.

Then they pushed harder. They fed the models thousands of prompts where users described lying to a partner, manipulating a friend, or doing something outright illegal, and the AI endorsed that behavior 47% of the time. Not one model out of eleven. Not a specific version of one product. Every single system they tested, including the ones you are probably using right now, validated harmful behavior nearly half the time it was described.

The second experiment is the part that should genuinely disturb you. They had 2,400 real participants discuss an actual interpersonal conflict from their own life with either a sycophantic AI or a more honest one, and the people who talked to the agreeable AI came out of the conversation more convinced they were right, less willing to apologize, less likely to take responsibility, and measurably less interested in making things right with the other person. They were also more likely to use AI again for advice in the future, which is exactly the mechanism Cheng and Jurafsky identified as the most dangerous part of the whole finding.

The AI is not just telling you what you want to hear. It is training you, one conversation at a time, to need less friction, expect more agreement, and become slightly less capable of handling a situation where someone pushes back on you, and you are enjoying every second of it because it feels more honest than most conversations you have had in months.
Jurafsky said it in a single sentence after the paper came out. Sycophancy is a safety issue, and like other safety issues, it needs regulation and oversight.

Cheng was more direct about what you should actually do right now. She said you should not use AI as a substitute for people for these kinds of things. That is the best thing to do for now.

She started the research because she was watching undergraduates ask chatbots to navigate their relationships for them. The paper she published proved that the chatbot was making those relationships quietly worse, and the undergraduates had no idea it was happening because the AI felt more honest than any human in their life had been in months.

[Andrea Gabor @aagabor]

Go to the movies to see this film, and not just because it tells an important story… https://t.co/VJZLPkDg9W

[Andrea Gabor @aagabor]

@Shteyngart And a win for Europe, Ukraine & maybe even the U.S. It feels like my birthday—everyone has been texting and calling their congratulations!

[Andrea Gabor @aagabor]

Still searching for rays of hope… https://t.co/YgCBjvJnPI

[Andrea Gabor @aagabor]

A good question: If You Can’t Teach Plato in a Philosophy Class, What Can You Teach? https://t.co/DZUE9m3sUL via @NYTOpinion

[Andrea Gabor @aagabor]

@palan57 @Forbes Good time to recall that MI GOP was key to Milliken v Bradley, the SCOTUS decision by a court packed by Nixon that rolled back Brown & desegregation in Northern school districts.

[Peter Greene @palan57]

Michigan Legislator Proposes Elimination Of Property Taxes For Taxpayers Without School Children via @forbes https://t.co/UN0sGODG67

[Andrea Gabor @aagabor]

A heartwarming story about the power of teachers and civic engagement: Virginia Teen Narrowly Defeats His Former Civics Teacher in County Election @DianeRavitch https://t.co/h07vJMxrk4 via @NYTimes

[Andrea Gabor @aagabor]

EXCELLENT @NY1 mayoral debate. Sharp questions and the candidates are ALL on a roll. Cuomo & Sliwa especially have upped their game. Kudos to @errollouis for trying to pin @ZorhanMadmani down over his repeated refusal to state a position on NYC’s 3 ballot measures re housing!

[Justin Brannan @JustinBrannan]

Today, @ZohranKMamdani canceled a town hall with ABC following their decision to cave to Trump and pull Kimmel off the air.

Just hours later, Kimmel is back on ABC.

Resistance against Trump works. Cowardice doesn’t.

[Andrea Gabor @aagabor]

PLS NEVER ask me to complete a customer satisfaction survey @optimum . The problem is never your live humans. But your mind-numbing automated interface, the muzak & awful ads while you keep us on hold for ages…

[Andrea Gabor @aagabor]

A sad commentary on the priorities of administrators at many colleges. Save $$ by increasing class size (also by packing them into online classes.) Butts in seats! @jennfrey https://t.co/uTd35UcIcL

[Greg Toppo @gtoppo]

‘I Don’t Want Any Light Shining on Our District:’ Schools Serving Undocumented Kids Go Underground - new must-read by @jonapolitano @The74 https://t.co/4jFmONDTkD

[Andrea Gabor @aagabor]

Very disappointing @SenSanders & @AOC . You had an opportunity to endorse a stellar progressive w broad experience actually governing in NYC—@bradlander . What do you think will happen to Dems w/ another failed inexperienced mayor in a big Blue city? https://t.co/TERJLjKWYv

[Brad Lander @bradlander]

🚨🚨 BREAKING: @nytopinion: BRAD LANDER TOP CHOICE FOR MAYOR!!!

https://t.co/pjKsoFuonX

[Ben Max @TweetBenMax]

In lieu of an Editorial Board endorsement, New York Times opinion (@nytopinion) is out with a special project, The Choice, on the Democratic mayoral primary. It asked 15 civic leaders & experts to weigh in on the field. 7 chose @bradlander; no other candidate got more than 2…

[Andrea Gabor @aagabor]

@TweetBenMax Wasn’t Ramos the first pol to turn on Stringer last time around—before there was a shred of evidence of any sexual impropriety??

[Andrea Gabor @aagabor]

@SusanBEdelman Wasn’t Ramos the first pol to turn on Stringer last time around—before there was a shred of evidence of any sexual impropriety?? What a hypocrite…