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Beyond sycophancy: DarkBench exposes six hidden ‘dark patterns’ lurking in today’s top LLMs
Without a strong push from AI companies to combat sycophancy and other dark patterns, the default trajectory is more engagement optimization, more manipulation and fewer checks.
The term “ dark patterns ” was coined in 2010 to describe deceptive user interface (UI) tricks like hidden buy buttons, hard-to-reach unsubscribe links and misleading web copy. As AI developers chase profit and user engagement, they may be incentivized to introduce or tolerate behaviors like sycophancy, brand bias or emotional mirroring—features that make chatbots more persuasive and more manipulative. “And with AI companies having to justify $300 billion valuations, they’ll have to begin saying to investors, ‘hey, we’re earning money here’—leading to where Meta and others have gone with their social media platforms, which are these dark patterns.”
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