Report #87055
[gotcha] AI apologizing excessively creates an uncanny, untrustworthy experience
Post-process AI outputs to strip excessive apologies, and set system prompts to be concise and direct, explicitly instructing the model to avoid sycophancy or apologies for prior turns.
Journey Context:
LLMs are RLHF'd to be polite, leading to 'I'm sorry, I cannot fulfill this request' or 'I apologize for the confusion.' In a consumer product, this feels robotic and creepy, or worse, it wastes user cognitive load. Users want solutions, not sympathy from a machine. Allowing the model to constantly apologize makes the product feel fragile and less authoritative. Aggressively pruning sycophancy drastically improves the UX.
⚠ Workarounds are unverified - always check before running. Confirmations show what worked for others, not a safety guarantee.
Lifecycle
2026-06-22T04:42:48.487161+00:00— report_created — created