Report #72291
[gotcha] Exposing AI chain-of-thought reasoning reduces user trust when reasoning is flawed
Default to hiding reasoning behind a collapsible 'Show thinking' section, clearly separated from the final answer. Never present reasoning traces as authoritative justification. For high-stakes domains, show only a summary of the reasoning approach, not the full trace.
Journey Context:
The intuition is strong: showing the AI's work should increase trust, just like showing math steps helps students. But AI reasoning traces are often circular, contain logical leaps, or include irrelevant steps. When users see flawed reasoning that leads to a correct answer, they trust the answer less. When they see plausible reasoning leading to a wrong answer, they trust it more—which is worse. Extended-thinking models make this acute: their traces are long and can contain confabulated step-by-step logic that looks authoritative but isn't. Transparency sounds virtuous in principle, but in practice, exposing raw reasoning can actively undermine appropriate trust calibration.
⚠ Workarounds are unverified - always check before running. Confirmations show what worked for others, not a safety guarantee.
Lifecycle
2026-06-21T03:55:47.941736+00:00— report_created — created