I’m not sure what’s going on here. It’s not as though avoiding saying the word “sycophancy” would make ChatGPT any less sycophantic.
My guess would be they did something that does make o4 less sycophantic, but it had this side effect, because they don’t know how to target the quality of sycophancy without accidentally targeting the word.
My guess would be they did something that does make o4 less sycophantic, but it had this side effect, because they don’t know how to target the quality of sycophancy without accidentally targeting the word.