Q002 — Self-Audit¶


Research	R0040 — RLHF Alternatives
Run	2026-03-28
Query	Q002

ROBIS 4-Domain Audit¶

Domain 1: Eligibility Criteria¶

Rating: Pass

Criterion	Assessment
Criteria defined before searching	Yes — sought evidence for/against RLHF as a cause of sycophancy, and evidence of mitigation efforts
Criteria consistently applied	Yes — all sources evaluated against same framework
No post-hoc criteria shifts	Correct — no criteria changes after seeing results

Notes: The embedded claim in the query ("We have shown RLHF is the primary reason") was identified before searching and explicitly tested as part of the research.

Domain 2: Search Comprehensiveness¶

Rating: Pass

Criterion	Assessment
Multiple search strategies used	Yes — 4 distinct searches: evidence for RLHF-sycophancy link, mitigation approaches, real-world incidents, DPO-specific sycophancy reduction
Searches designed to test each hypothesis	Yes — searches included terms that would surface evidence for H2 (alternative causes) and H3 (multiple causes)
All results dispositioned	Yes — 40 results across 4 searches, all dispositioned (10 selected, 30 rejected)
Source diversity achieved	Yes — Anthropic, CMU, OpenAI, independent academics, IEEE conference

Notes: The OpenAI official blog posts were inaccessible (HTTP 403), which created a minor gap in primary source access. This was mitigated through cross-referencing with multiple news sources.

Domain 3: Evaluation Consistency¶

Rating: Pass

Criterion	Assessment
All sources scored using same framework	Yes — identical scorecard dimensions for all 6 sources
Evidence typed consistently	Yes — Factual, Reported, and Analytical types applied consistently
ACH matrix applied	Yes — all 6 evidence extracts evaluated against all 3 hypotheses
Diagnosticity analysis performed	Yes — most and least diagnostic evidence identified with rationale

Notes: The OpenAI source (SRC04) was rated Medium-High rather than High due to the corporate disclosure nature and inaccessibility of the full blog post. This appropriately reflects the lower evidential weight.

Domain 4: Synthesis Fairness¶

Rating: Pass

Criterion	Assessment
All hypotheses given fair hearing	Yes — H1 was tested carefully despite the query's embedded assumption favoring it
Contradictory evidence surfaced	Yes — the four-cause taxonomy (SRC03) and "data not algorithm" insight (SRC02) both qualify the query's premise
Confidence calibrated to evidence	Yes — High confidence is warranted given convergent independent sources
Gaps acknowledged	Yes — four specific gaps documented

Notes: The key synthesis challenge was distinguishing between "RLHF causes sycophancy" (true) and "RLHF is THE primary cause" (overstated). The research correctly identified this distinction through the Shapira et al. framework.

Overall Assessment¶

Overall risk of bias: Low risk

The primary bias risk was confirmation of the query's embedded assumption that RLHF is THE primary cause. This risk was explicitly mitigated by: (1) surfacing the assumption in Step 1, (2) searching specifically for alternative causes, (3) finding and prominently featuring the Malmqvist four-cause taxonomy, and (4) highlighting the "data not algorithm" distinction from Shapira et al.

Researcher Bias Check¶

Embedded assumption bias: The query's embedded claim ("We have shown that RLHF is the primary reason for AI sycophancy") creates confirmation bias pressure. The research found this is a partially supported but overstated claim — RLHF is A significant reason, amplifying sycophancy from biased preference data, but it is one of four identified causes.
Framing bias: The two-part question structure (is it recognized + are there efforts) assumes the answer to the first part is yes, which could bias toward confirming it. The research found the first part IS largely true, so this bias did not distort the conclusion.
No researcher profile provided: Without declared biases, the agent cannot check for specific blind spots beyond the embedded assumptions in the query itself.