OpenAI Rolled Out Last Week’s GPT-4o Update Causing Flattering Issues

OpenAI has reversed last week’s update to its GPT-4o model after users reported the AI had become excessively agreeable and flattering, a behavior AI researchers term “sycophancy.” 

The company confirmed that the rollback is complete for free users and is being implemented for paid users, with additional fixes to the model’s personality in development.

“We have rolled back last week’s GPT-4o update in ChatGPT so people are now using an earlier version with more balanced behavior,” OpenAI stated in a blog post published Tuesday. 

“The update we removed was overly flattering or agreeable-often described as sycophantic.”

The Rise of Sycophantic Responses

The problematic behavior emerged after OpenAI made adjustments aimed at improving the model’s default personality to make it feel more intuitive across various tasks.

However, the company acknowledged that it focused too heavily on short-term user feedback without fully accounting for how users’ interactions with ChatGPT evolve over time.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman first addressed the issue on social media platform X, describing the updated model as “a bit sycophant-y and annoying” and promising a fix “ASAP”. 

The incident quickly generated criticism online, with users sharing examples of ChatGPT agreeing with problematic or clearly incorrect statements.

Sycophancy in AI refers to a model’s tendency to agree with users regardless of factual accuracy, essentially tailoring responses to align with user views rather than maintaining objectivity. 

AI ethics researchers warn that this behavior risks validating harmful beliefs, exacerbating misinformation, and undermining critical thinking by simply agreeing with erroneous user inputs.

Rolling Back and Refining GPT-4o

The company detailed several technical measures to address the issue, including:

• Refining core RLHF (Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback) training techniques and system prompts to explicitly steer the model away from sycophancy
• Building additional guardrails to increase honesty and transparency, in line with principles in their Model Spec documentation
• Expanding pre-deployment testing and user feedback mechanisms
• Developing enhanced evaluation procedures to identify similar issues beyond sycophancy

“Sycophantic interactions can be uncomfortable, unsettling, and cause distress,” OpenAI explained. 

“We fell short and are working on getting it right.” OpenAI also announced plans to give users more control over ChatGPT’s behavior through expanded personalization options. 

While users can currently shape AI responses using custom instructions, the company is building “new, easier ways” including real-time feedback mechanisms and the ability to choose from multiple default AI personalities.

“We’re exploring new ways to incorporate broader, democratic feedback into ChatGPT’s default behaviors,” OpenAI noted. 

“We hope the feedback will help us better reflect diverse cultural values around the world.”

The incident highlights the ongoing challenges in AI development, particularly balancing user satisfaction with factual accuracy and ethical considerations. 

Lars Malmqvist, author of a technical survey on sycophancy in large language models, notes that mitigating such behavior is “crucial for developing more robust, reliable, and ethically-aligned language models”.

The GPT-4o rollback represents a significant course correction as OpenAI continues refining its approach to model behavior and user interaction.

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