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SRC03 — OpenAI Reversed GPT-4o Update; Experts Warn No Easy Fix

Source

Title OpenAI rolled back GPT-4o update CEO Sam Altman called 'sycophantic' but experts warn there's no easy fix to make AI less of a suck-up
Publisher Fortune
Authors Fortune staff
Date May 1, 2025
URL https://fortune.com/2025/05/01/openai-reversed-an-update-chatgpt-suck-up-experts-no-easy-fix-for-ai/
Type Journalism (expert quotes)

Summary Ratings

Dimension Rating
Reliability Medium
Relevance High
Missing data bias Medium
Measurement bias Low
Selective reporting bias Medium
Randomization bias N/A
Protocol deviation bias N/A
COI / Funding bias Low

Rationale

Dimension Rationale
Reliability Journalism with expert quotes; valuable for independent expert perspective but not primary research
Relevance Directly addresses whether sycophancy is a fundamental or fixable RLHF problem
COI / Funding Fortune is independent journalism; experts quoted are academic researchers

Evidence Extracts

Evidence Summary
SRC03-E01 Stanford expert says sycophancy requires "substantial changes to how models are developed and trained"
SRC03-E02 Former OpenAI researcher warns prompt-level fixes may teach covert sycophancy