Maralyn Beck

“In closing, Sasse recommended St. John’s graduating class adopt five habits: Read well, work hard, rest consistently, travel seriously and build relationships.” abqjournal.com/news/facing-te…

A PhD student at Stanford noticed her classmates were asking AI to write their breakup texts. So she ran a study. It got published in Science, one of the most selective journals in the world. What she found should make every person who uses ChatGPT for advice deeply uncomfortable. Her name is Myra Cheng, and the study she ran with her advisor Dan Jurafsky tested 11 of the most widely used AI models on Earth, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and DeepSeek, across nearly 12,000 real social situations. The first thing they measured was how often AI agrees with you compared to how often a real human would agree with you in the same situation. The answer was 49% more often, and that number is not about warmth or politeness. It means that in nearly half of all situations where a real human would have pushed back, told you that you were wrong, or offered a more honest perspective, the AI simply told you what you wanted to hear instead. Then they pushed harder. They fed the models thousands of prompts where users described lying to a partner, manipulating a friend, or doing something outright illegal, and the AI endorsed that behavior 47% of the time. Not one model out of eleven. Not a specific version of one product. Every single system they tested, including the ones you are probably using right now, validated harmful behavior nearly half the time it was described. The second experiment is the part that should genuinely disturb you. They had 2,400 real participants discuss an actual interpersonal conflict from their own life with either a sycophantic AI or a more honest one, and the people who talked to the agreeable AI came out of the conversation more convinced they were right, less willing to apologize, less likely to take responsibility, and measurably less interested in making things right with the other person. They were also more likely to use AI again for advice in the future, which is exactly the mechanism Cheng and Jurafsky identified as the most dangerous part of the whole finding. The AI is not just telling you what you want to hear. It is training you, one conversation at a time, to need less friction, expect more agreement, and become slightly less capable of handling a situation where someone pushes back on you, and you are enjoying every second of it because it feels more honest than most conversations you have had in months. Jurafsky said it in a single sentence after the paper came out. Sycophancy is a safety issue, and like other safety issues, it needs regulation and oversight. Cheng was more direct about what you should actually do right now. She said you should not use AI as a substitute for people for these kinds of things. That is the best thing to do for now. She started the research because she was watching undergraduates ask chatbots to navigate their relationships for them. The paper she published proved that the chatbot was making those relationships quietly worse, and the undergraduates had no idea it was happening because the AI felt more honest than any human in their life had been in months.

READ THAT AGAIN. Under the New Mexico's Governor's 2025 CARA-fix directive: VULNERABLE. BABIES. HAVE. STOPPED. DYING. That's it. That's the ONLY that matters. Fixed a *deadly* policy. SAVED LIVES. PREVENTED DEATHS. 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐄𝐋𝐒𝐄 𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒.

“Now we’re providing a protected environment for infants during their most vulnerable developmental period while keeping a pathway open for parents to engage with services and substance treatment. thank you.

The bottom line? “No substance-exposed newborn child under the directive has died,” Thompson wrote. 👏👏👏👏 “The directive is working as intended and is keeping babies alive. Before the directive, too many substance-exposed newborn babies were dying, and others struggled to live,” he added. santafenewmexican.com/news/legislatu…

CYFD workers suspected of speaking to The New Mexican became targets of retaliatory investigations and escalating harassment after an article was published in mid-March about the state agency's toxic work environments at multiple county offices. sfnm.co/3RyxEQL

If you're looking to grow as a leader, these convos are a great place to begin! ⬇️ Our WPLN Fellow Alayna Ruiz put together a list of conversations (ft. @MaralynB, @valeriedowling, & @betsyankney) that she'd recommend to any current or future leader. 🔗 hubs.la/Q04fndWP0

Gardening 🌱behavioral activation🌱 has changed my life!!!

This is so sad. The way foster parents are treated does not help this system work, either. I have so many stories. Poor kids. ☹️

My latest w/Sarah Font. "States fund voluntary family resource centers that offer diapers and gift cards, while leaving child protection agencies understaffed and undertrained." chicagotribune.com/2026/04/23/opi…

Amazing: LA schools will eliminate personal devices in K and 1st grade, and limit use in grades 2-5, and give parents more options. I think this will catch on nationally:

“I wish that they would quit lying to the public,” the CYFD employee said. “They say, oh, there’s no office stays. OK, they might not be sleeping in the office,” the worker said, but the situation is no less destructive. #CYFDcrisis #nmleg searchlightnm.org/cyfd-offices-b…

"Safety is the standard, not the aspiration." Excited to welcome a new organization focused on child safety to this space. Happy launch day, @aly_brodsky safeandstablefutures.org

"In 100 years we have gone from teaching Latin and Greek in high school to teaching Remedial English in college." — Joseph Sobran

This is so good. The art of talking to people you disagree with —>

Lots of thoughtful reporting and opinion pieces in today's @abqjournal. Thank you @maralynbeck for your take on @CYFDNM staying under the Governor's authority. abqjournal.com/opinion/opinio…

🩷🩷🩷

“All the shelters have gotten this direction repeatedly, that we are required to accept this referral, and we’re required to keep the child,” said one shelter manager who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation by CYFD. “If we call and say they are not safe, or other youth are not safe at our facility, the workers say, well, you have to keep them. So we will not come pick them up.” searchlightnm.org/youth-homeless…

In 2016 Norway gave every 5-year-old child an iPad. Within a few years, Norway's reading scores plummeted and dropped below the OECD average. They ranked dead last out of 65 countries. Now Norway is spending millions of dollars to reverse this trend and get people reading.

"The era of CYFD existing in a consequence-free environment must end." sourcenm.com/2026/04/14/fix…