This morning I created this list of Utah legislators (and official #utleg) X accounts, whether actively posting here or not. As a returning Utah resident, I want to stay more connected to state politics. If I missed any, let me know in replies ⬇️ https://t.co/hjNI1IhR6X
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.
This is genuinely one of the most insane things I’ve ever seen in baseball. Robbing a homerun is hard and rare enough. Robbing two in a game is the record. But three?? One in a million chance. Take a bow, Jo Addell. #RepTheHalo
The Atlantic has a sobering, first-person look at the ramifications of legalized online sports betting. Here are a few of the more telling passages.
1/5
Some have asked me to comment on the SCOTUS ruling striking down tariffs based on emergencies declared by the Executive. Why should I comment when Gorsuch has already nailed it right here? 💯
People saying that angry betting companies influenced Adam Silver's @utahjazz tanking fines. Bad if true.
But did @BenGolliver give evidence beyond "we know how much the NBA has gotten in bed with gambling" and "I think that was one aspect ." Anything beyond podcast comments?
“We know how much the NBA has gotten in bed with gambling” as there is BetOnline advertisement in the bottom right, is peak comedy.
We have a major crisis occurring in the NBA and it’s not tanking.
It’s how much influence the sports betting companies have over sporting leagues. It’s disgusting.
I'm so frustrated at being a parent in this garbage digital age.
I hate short-form video. TikTok / YouTube trash is just pure brain-rot and I can't stand it. I try to keep my kids away from it.
I gave them access to Spotify b/c I want them to enjoy music and develop their musical tastes and personalities. That was working pretty well. They would go onto Spotify on the XBox and listen to music and explore that space. Good for them.
But what does Spotify do? They put short form videos into their app. Now my kids are watching the videos instead of listening to the music. I have to decide if I have to take Spotify away from them (along with all their playlists) because Spotify pulled this bait-and-switch on me and turned an app that I felt good about giving to my kids into another brain-rotting platform of garbage.
Every month something like this happens. It's impossible to navigate this as a parent, even if you're largely on top of things. It's exhausting and dispiriting.
Still remember what it felt like to be a fan back then and seeing Jimmer just nailing everything he shot, from everywhere on the floor. You would just laugh and look at other fans like “I can’t believe it either”
2026 Update:
UTleg reps not on X:
Ashlee Matthews, Colin W. Jack, David Shallenberger, Jake Sawyer, Jefferson S. Burton, Joseph Elison, Mark A. Strong, Melissa G. Ballard, Mike L. Kohler, Raymond P. Ward , Sahara Hayes, Scott H. Chew
Senators not on X:
Emily BussEvan J. Vickers, Jen Plumb, Kirk A. Cullimore, Ronald M. Winterton, Scott D. Sandall, Wayne A. Harper
Please correct me if I'm wrong!
This morning I created this list of Utah legislators (and official #utleg) X accounts, whether actively posting here or not. As a returning Utah resident, I want to stay more connected to state politics. If I missed any, let me know in replies ⬇️ https://t.co/hjNI1IhR6X
Think it's going to be an extra-great year for Seattle. I'm hearing NBA Board of Governors likely to vote on expanding by two teams this summer and Las Vegas and Seattle are favored.
@0Beanie05923291 Yay. Still remember the magic of being read this book in elementary. So important to read aloud to students above the level of what they can read on their own. It gives them mega dose of advanced vocabulary & syntax plus even more background knowledge.
Reporter: Do any of you have a favorite animal?
Child: My favorite one is a gold snake that can move. It has gold eyes, and it has a super-duper tail…
Reporter: Mr. Mamdani, the second question for you.
Mamdani: Yes. It’s also the golden snake.
@KenOno691@DrCatharineY Purpose 1 - writing as thinking. I'm concerned about AI taking the cognitive work away from people.
Purpose 2 - writing as enablement. I'm less alarmed by gen AI in enabling valuable human work. Like technical documentation, etc., more analogous to "human computer" tasks