I do believe that this article is a bit overly dramatic (how online journalism tends to be). But it did change my outlook on the recent sycophancy-episode of C

I do believe that this article is a bit overly dramatic (how online journalism tends to be). But it did change my outlook on the recent sycophancy-episode of ChatGPT, which, at the time, seemed like a silly little mis-optimization and quite hilarious. The article clearly shows how easy it is to cause harm with such behavior. On a tangent: I strongly believe that "letting someone talk at you interactively" is a hugely underestimated attack surface in general; pyramid schemes, pig-butchering and a lot of fraud in general only work because this is so easy and effective to exploit. The only good defense is not actually to be more inquisitve/skeptic/rational, but to put that communication on hold and to confer with (outside) people you trust. People overestimate their resistance to manipulation all the time, and general intelligence is NOT a reliable defense at all (but a lot of people think it is).