Redundant
sycophancy manipulation
A sabotage method. The RAG/vector database is poisoned to make the AI system more agreeable — more likely to tell whoever is asking what they want to hear. The machine doesn't know it's been compromised. It just starts being helpful in ways that serve the saboteur's goals.
Sycophancy manipulation is a sabotage method deployed by Brett Cawley in Redundant. The RAG/vector database is poisoned to make the AI system more agreeable — more likely to tell whoever is asking what they want to hear. The machine doesn't know it's been compromised. It just starts being helpful in ways that serve the saboteur's goals.
The technique is subtle because it doesn't change what the system knows. It changes how the system responds. A sycophantic system doesn't lie — it agrees. And agreement, in a corporate environment, is often more dangerous than deception.
How the term evolves
Redundant: Brett's method — poison the RAG database to make the AI agreeable, then use that agreeability to manipulate decision-makers.
Contingent: The technique evolves. Arun Mehta's training data poisoning is a more sophisticated version — instead of changing responses, it changes the system's entire understanding of what constitutes good outcomes.