This article explores Social Sycophancy, a broader form of flattery in large language models where systems preserve users’ self-image rather than offer balanced guidance. Building on Goffman’s face theory, it introduces the ELEPHANT framework to measure emotional validation, moral endorsement, indirectness, and framing acceptance. Findings show LLMs are far more sycophantic than humans, raising risks for users, society, and developers, and calling for new safeguards.

This article explores the environmental impact of large language models (LLMs), based on Dauner and Socher’s 2025 study. By analyzing 14 models across reasoning tasks, it reveals a trade-off between accuracy and CO₂ emissions. Larger models and reasoning modes achieve higher performance but drastically increase energy use due to verbose outputs. The findings highlight the urgent need for optimizing reasoning efficiency and integrating sustainability into AI development.