Texts read us, and genres train and programme their readers. Some of the basic questions from literary studies playing out now across extra-literary human relations, and in ever more worrying ways. This from Myra Cheng and Dan Jurafsky’s work at Stanford:
“Users are aware that models behave in sycophantic and flattering ways,” said Dan Jurafsky, the study’s senior author and a professor of linguistics in the School of Humanities and Sciences and of computer science in the School of Engineering. “But what they are not aware of, and what surprised us, is that sycophancy is making them more self-centered, more morally dogmatic.”