Jen McGee

Registered Investment Adviser, Volunteer Extraordinaire (church, school, and anyone else who asks!), Motto: Life by Triage

[Jen McGee @jendmcgee]

@_TKizz @TomSteyer Just ran during the Dodger Game. 😬😡

[Jen McGee @jendmcgee]

@MrTikiSean @TomSteyer Just ran during the Dodger Game 😬😡

[Sean O'Neill @MrTikiSean]

@TomSteyer thanks for running an add on YouTube that called into question the existence of #santa. My kid is now crushed thanks to your crap ad…

[Satasha Katergator @mathryn_m]

There is almost a 100% chance that a woman who sincerely prays with you every single day will never divorce you.

The men of faith entering lasting marriages have known this fact for a long time.

[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.

[Jeremy Wayne Tate @JeremyTate41]

A Christian is killed every 2 hours in sub-Saharan Africa. More than 70% of all Christians killed for their faith last year were Nigerian. And yet 94% of Nigerian Catholics still show up to Mass every Sunday. The highest attendance rate on the planet.

Read that again.

[The Wall Street Journal @WSJ]

Breaking: Oil prices plunged after Iran said the Strait of Hormuz is "completely open" to commercial vessels following a cease-fire in Lebanon https://t.co/o2ZxU8N8Ae

[Jen McGee @jendmcgee]

@SeanBarry__ Ha!

[Derry Eads @DerryEads]

Reagan Maguire of Thousand Oaks placed fifth (35-2) in the CIFSS D3 girls shot put final. @vcspreps

[Caltech Quake Bot @CaltechQuake]

#AutoEQ A magnitude 3.8 (MI) #earthquake has occurred 7 mi NW of Malibu, CA at 23:44 PST Feb 14, 2025 [2025-02-15 07:44 UTC]. #SCSN has not yet confirmed this event. For more info visit https://t.co/f7byvduyRA

[Jen McGee @jendmcgee]

@SeanBarry__ 🤣

[PragerU @prageru]

As a very pro-squirrel organization, we send our deepest condolences to the family of Peanut the squirrel 🙏

RIP Peanut 💔

[PragerU @prageru]

Unacceptable 😤

[Benny Johnson @bennyjohnson]

🚨 Woman arrested in Ohio for eating a neighbor’s pet cat — WHAT?!

[KNX News 1070 AM @knxnews]

Americans have recently been searching for jobs at the highest rate since March 2014, according to a new report on July numbers from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Center for Microeconomic Data.
https://t.co/R52BOdw06O

[La Reina Athletics @RegentAthletics]

Regents get a road league victory over Laguna Blanca 33 -25 and are now in second place in league. Holland Hawks had 9 points, and both Ava Nebroski and Lily Morge added 8 points. @vcspreps @TheAcornSports

[La Reina Athletics @RegentAthletics]

Regents get a road league win at Villanova and push their league record to 3-1. Brianna Bergstrom had 2 goals, Lucy Shah, Grace Courtland, Sadia Harbour, and Jillian Estrada all had a goal. Girls travel on Grace on Tuesday next week. @vcspreps @TheAcornSports

[La Reina Athletics @RegentAthletics]

Regents defeat Ojai Valley at home 36-23. La Reina was led by Ava Nebroski who had 18, Lily Morge added 8, and Holland Hawks chipped in with 7. League opener on Thursday against Dunn. @TheAcornSports @vcpreps

[La Reina Athletics @RegentAthletics]

Junior Brown University Commit Sarah Shaw received All-CIF recognition for the second consecutive year. Shaw led her team to a league championship, and was also the TVL MVP.
Congrats to Sarah, her teammates and coaching staff on a great season!
@vcpreps @TheAcornSports

[La Reina Athletics @RegentAthletics]

Soccer (1-1-1) defeated Beacon Hill their first league match 5-1. Brianna Bergstrom had two goals, Maggie Kearin had two goals, and Sadie Harbour added one. Regents host Grace on Thursday.
@vcpreps @TheAcornSports