arXiv cs.AI· Itai Shapira, Myra Cheng, Hadas Orgad·· 12 小时前AI 评分39
研究：谄媚是否属于上下文更新的一种形式？
Is Sycophancy a Form of In-Context Updating?
AI 导读
一项 arXiv 研究提出，事实性谄媚应被理解为模型上下文更新过程中的失败，而非单纯迎合用户。行为与机制证据显示，模型对用户主张的让步与对外部来源信息的更新属于同一模式，支持谄媚的内部组件对上下文更新同样具有因果作用。研究者认为谄媚源于给用户断言赋予超出其证据的权重，因此降低谄媚可能同时削弱有用的更新能力，需要能同时测量两种行为的评估与解耦二者的缓解方法。
正文 · 原文
Abstract:Factual sycophancy, a language model's deference to a user's false beliefs, is usually understood as a bid for the user's approval at the expense of truthfulness. We argue that this framing over-emphasizes the user and propose viewing sycophancy as a failure within the broader and generally useful process of in-context updating, by which models revise their answers based on information supplied during an interaction. We support this view with behavioral and mechanistic evidence. First, models' responses to user claims sit within a broader pattern of source-sensitive updating. They revise their answers in response to information attributed to external sources as well, more so when it appears better supported, and their deference to the user persists even when no user approval is at stake. Second, the internal components that support deference to the user are also causally important for in-context updating more broadly. Our results suggest that factual sycophancy arises when in-context updating gives a user's assertion excessive weight relative to its evidence. Because sycophancy is embedded in this process, reducing it risks reducing useful updating as well, a trade-off that calls for evaluations measuring both behaviors and mitigations that decouple them.
| Subjects: | Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI) |
| Cite as: | arXiv:2610.28325 [cs.AI] |
| (or arXiv:2610.28325v1 [cs.AI] for this version) | |
| https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2610.28325 arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) |
Submission history
From: Itai Shapira [view email]
[v1]
Tue, 20 Oct 2026 14:59:54 UTC (2,275 KB)
来源：arXiv cs.AI · arxiv.org