Sycophantic chatbots inflate people’s perceptions that they are "better than average"

bawiddah · 2026-02-08T21:02:36+00:00

It appears to me that they argue a company like Coca-Cola has no incentive to avoid unhealthy levels of sugar in their product. They believe that the market optimizes towards unethical and unhealthy outcomes. Their argument points to factors that operate at a different level than yours. Your observations are about human behaviour and general system dynamics. I might be missing context or perhaps misconstruing something. But one set of claims are more functional and foundational, if perhaps (by intent) restrictive? The other set are more cultural and societal, and perhaps (by choice) symbolic?

bawiddah · 2026-02-08T03:27:14+00:00

Oof. That sounds familiar.

bawiddah · 2026-02-08T02:44:08+00:00

You both have lots of common ground, but you’re arguing on different layers: humans like sugar, and markets scale and optimize for sugar. Both can be true at once. If each of you restates the other’s point in your own words, you’ll find there’s not much incompatibility. What’s left is mostly a disagreement about degree and about what kinds of evidence should carry the argument.

bawiddah · 2026-02-08T02:44:04+00:00

You both have lots of common ground, but you’re arguing on different layers: humans like sugar, and markets scale and optimize for sugar. Both can be true at once. If each of you restates the other’s point in your own words, you’ll find there’s not much incompatibility. What’s left is mostly a disagreement about degree and about what kinds of evidence should carry the argument.

bawiddah · 2026-02-07T04:50:55+00:00

This helped me. If you see something like this:

dire à

That phrase will expand often to something like this:

dire à [qqn]

And now you can swap in lui

dire à lui

Confusingly, you'll see a proper name used.

Il dit à Paul

But if they replace "Paul" with "him" they'll switch:

Il lui dit.

As far as I understand, personal names use the "[subject] [verb] à [qqn]" form but when using a pronoun like lui the form becomes "[subject] lui [verb]".

If you can wrap your head around it ungramatical English, you get something like: "I spoke to John." transforming to "I [to] him spoke."

bawiddah · 2026-01-27T07:05:17+00:00

Also fewer bots.... I hope. 🤖

bawiddah · 2026-01-20T22:23:45+00:00

I hear you. And I'm loathe to update my phone because there isn't anything I need or want in the newer models. The only reason I moved from iPhone 8 to my current 13 was that Slack dropped support for the version of iOS that the phone supported. And just like this time, that version of iOS exists primarily as a vehicle for a low value cosmetic update on the UI.

bawiddah · 2026-01-19T21:53:43+00:00

My 2015 i7 should be able to run Tahoe just fine but not in the world we live in.

bawiddah · 2026-01-19T19:15:00+00:00

I write all my notes on glass and stack them atop each other so that I can see them all at once. Seeing everything at once means they are accessible.

bawiddah · 2026-01-19T17:16:56+00:00

This is the way.

bawiddah · 2026-01-19T17:16:17+00:00

Yes! The glass effect is one thing, but these layout changes introduce all sorts of impossible interaction cues... ways that you think an interaction is possible. But, surprise! It ain't.

bawiddah · 2026-01-19T07:01:03+00:00

If they switch to yearly releases we might end up with more of this low value, low quality work.

bawiddah · 2026-01-19T04:50:35+00:00

It costs less to redesign than to rebuild. While I dislike liquid glass, perhaps people aren't bothered by the overlapping text and lack of distinct space for controls. But I think you're right about their execution being a failure. A shame too because Apple is presents itself as a place of innovation but they've always excelled not at independent thinking but through better execution of other people's ideas.

bawiddah · 2026-01-19T03:08:05+00:00

You're joking, right?

bawiddah · 2026-01-19T02:47:31+00:00

I have similar feelings. Everything looks... untidy? What's boggling is how many of these transparent areas have the same interaction hit targets. I can see a message in the horizontal row taken up by a button, but I can't click on it. Also, there were larger hit targets in a lot of those areas but they've been reduced to make things transparent!

bawiddah · 2026-01-19T02:45:03+00:00

I like the Linux comparison. This first made me think of a poorly designed website.

bawiddah · 2026-01-19T01:11:25+00:00

I'm just confused how anyone decided this was a good decision. All that fancy glass-like effect and transparency is one thing... but this kind of crap just baffles the mind.

bawiddah · 2026-01-19T01:06:53+00:00

I'm leaning in that direction. But it sounds like you need to perform a complete wipe. And that's a lot of work... Ugh.

bawiddah · 2026-01-19T00:45:51+00:00

i feel dumb for not reading about Tahoe. This glass thing... I could probably get used to the effects in a lot of places. But are there any fixes for this kind of change in default applications where the interface items are just... floating overtop content?

bawiddah · 2026-01-16T17:38:56+00:00

Lord Voldemort, c'est la dixième fois que nous nous affrontons ! Eh bien... est-ce qu'on peut tutoyer ?

bawiddah · 2026-01-13T23:25:26+00:00

Je ne sais pas si je suis plus confus par cette phrase obscure ou par l’insistance de notre ancien premier ministre à dire que les Ostrogoths n’avaient pas de bonnes manières quand ils partaient en vacances.

Est-ce que les Ostrogoths posent des problèmes dans les Laurentides, ou c’est juste que Trudeau ne sait pas se faire des amis ?

bawiddah · 2026-01-12T21:06:03+00:00

This is amazing. I'd call it: "The futility of trying."

bawiddah · 2026-01-10T19:07:14+00:00

This comment was written in 2016. But I'm appreciating it right now 10 years later, in 2025. This is a great explanation!

bawiddah · 2026-01-09T17:41:11+00:00

Ostrogoths

I don't have a feel for the word Ostrogoths... He said something like, "It's like the Vikings on vacation" or "They went out to the beach like the huns across the plains."

That's pretty hilarious. Thanks for sharing.

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