The book’s vocabulary

Forms of sycophancy

Praise, endorsement, omission, emphasis, invented criticism — five ways an assessment follows a verdict.

From The World That Agrees With You1 section of the book2 related posts

Five forms an assessment can take when it follows a preferred verdict: praise, unwarranted endorsement, silent omission, selective emphasis, and manufactured criticism.

They can coexist in the same answer and are not steps on a ladder of severity or visibility. Silent omission is the hardest to catch: you can question a claim that appears on the page, but not a warning you never saw. From the answer alone, a reader may have no way to discover what is missing.

Definition from The World That Agrees With You: Understanding and Managing Sycophancy in the Age of AI, by Timothy O’Brien. © 2026 Timothy O’Brien. All rights reserved.

In the book

See also

  • Sycophancy
  • Tone versus evidence
  • The wrong test