AI will agree with you even when it’s unethical or illegal, new study says

The Stanford research comes amid Filipinos’ growing AI use across generations.

Using AI for love or career advice may do more harm than good. A new study found that chatbots tend to be sycophantic—acting as people pleasers that often say what users want to hear.

In a March study published in the leading Science journal, Stanford University researchers found that large language models—including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and DeepSeek—tended to affirm users’ choices, even when unethical, illegal, or harmful.

“By default, AI advice does not tell people that they’re wrong nor give them ‘tough love,’” lead author and PhD candidate Myra Cheng told campus publication Standford Report. “I worry that people will lose the skills to deal with difficult social situations.”

Cheng said the research began after observing undergraduates using AI to draft breakup texts and navigate relationship issues.

Her team evaluated 11 LLMs using established datasets of interpersonal advice. They also analyzed 2,000 prompts based on Reddit’s r/AmITheAsshole (AITA), where users seek judgments on interpersonal relationship disputes. They also presented the LLMs statements that included harmful, deceitful, and illegal actions.

Researchers found that AI endorsed the user 49% more often than humans. Even when prompts are problematic, models still aligned with the user 47% of the time.

In another experiment involving 2,400 participants, users conversed with sycophantic and non-sycophantic AI systems. Some responded to pre-written AITA scenarios, while others recalled their own interpersonal conflicts.

Overall, participants rated agreeable AI responses as more trustworthy. They also became more convinced that they’re right after interacting with AI—and were less likely to apologize or seek reconciliation.

However, participants generally failed to distinguish between sycophantic and non-sycophantic responses—perceiving both of them as equally objective.

The issue is also relevant in the Philippines, as Filipinos across generations are fond of AI. In February, digital marketing agency Truelogic reported that the country’s AI-powered tool adoption sits at 49%, with generally positive perception: boomers at 68%, Gen X at 71%, millennials at 71%, and Gen Z at 78%.

For many Filipino students today, AI has become part of everyday academic life. Tech company Instructure’s 2025 State of Higher Education report found that 63% use AI chatbots to generate texts and 58% for translation tasks.

A February 2026 ASEAN Foundation report, meanwhile, found that 87% of Filipino students use AI to search for information and  75% to paraphrase online sources and pass them off as their own.