I found the perfect JAMA article explaining that sycophancy is programmed into Artificial Intelligence (AI) therapy chatbots.
This reminded me of Marvin the paranoid android (“Life! Don’t talk to me about life!”) in the book series “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams. Marvin is an incredibly depressed robot who would never make a good psychotherapist.
There’s even a Facebook page listing someone posts of questions to ChatGPT about non-inspirational quotes from Marvin.
If programmers can make sycophantic AI therapists, there should be a way to make them less sycophantic. For more specific information, you can check out this relatively recent article published in Psychiatric Times by Dr. Allen Francis, MD and Justin Angel, a tech expert. I would probably substitute the term “confabulation” for “hallucinations” in most places where you read the latter.
I got a picture of a banded Red-tailed Hawk today in our back yard. It was pretty exciting. I can’t remember ever seeing one banded. I’ve gotten pictures of them occasionally, most recently before this in July, 2025. That one wasn’t banded.
I checked on the web for any reports of who might be tagging Red-tailed Hawks in Iowa. In recent months there have been a few sightings posted on social media sites. Other birds are being banded as well. There are people who are licensed by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to tag birds.
The Hitchcock Nature Center in Pottawattamie County is located in Honey Creek, Iowa, which is near Council Bluffs.
The Iowa Raptor Project is involved in conservation, education, and rehabilitation of birds of prey.
OK, until I saw this video, I admit I thought the snipe was an imaginary bird, an idea I got from the movie “Up.”
I saw an excellent post on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Dr. George Dawson’s post today, “The Problems With AI Are More Readily Apparent.” He mentions AI producing confabulations which are sometimes called hallucinations in AI. I distinguish hallucinations from confabulations because the former are sensory or perceptual problems while confabulations are making things up. In dementia, confabulations are often described as attempts to fill in gaps in knowledge or memory without any intention to deceive.
I sometimes read that AI is being sycophantic in its interactions with humans, which sounds a little strange to me. The definition of sycophancy is more about trying to please someone else by being obsequiously flattering. It’s puzzling but I have gotten that impression from AI, yet it’s a machine and I don’t know how anyone would program AI to be sycophantic because it’s a human trait.
On the other hand, I got a comically sycophantic reply from AI to my question inquiring about the definition of Calvinball Cribbage. It’s just a made-up term and, to be fair, I’ve also gotten bluntly frank denials from AI that there is any such thing as Calvinball Cribbage.
As a reminder, Calvinball is a term that arose from a comic strip called Calvin and Hobbes. In the strip, the characters invent a game called Calvinball and the only rule is making up the rules as you go along, although there is a goal of capturing your opponent’s flag. But you can’t play it the same way twice.
The most recent hilarious AI confabulation I’ve previously posted about was when Sena and I played our game of 11-card cribbage. There are cribbage players out there who make fun of such variations from standard 6-card cribbage and the name for it from one such player was “Calvinball crib.” My simple question was as usual, “What is Calvinball Cribbage?” The reply is copied below:
“Calvinball Cribbage is a humorous mashup of the chaotic, rule-free game from Calvin & Hobbes with traditional Cribbage, often involving themed boards or rule modifications, where the core idea is applying Calvinball’s fluid, make-it-up-as-you-go spirit to Cribbage’s scoring and play, adding wild, non-sensical rules like using mallets, changing hand values, or scoring points for silly actions, making each round unique and unpredictable, not a single defined game but a creative approach to Cribbage.
What it is (The Calvinball Aspect):
No Fixed Rules: Just like original Calvinball, there’s no single set of rules; the players invent them as they go.
Rule Changes: A key rule is that rules can’t be repeated, and players constantly invent new scoring, actions, or penalties.
Props & Actions: You might use mallets, balls, trees, or make up actions like “scoring three points for pointing at a cloud” or “losing a turn for looking left”.
How it Applies to Cribbage:
Themed Boards: You can find or make custom cribbage boards featuring Calvin & Hobbes, adding visual flair.
Modified Scoring: Instead of just points for pairs and runs, you might add a “Hobbes Bonus” for a specific card or penalize for “too much logic”.
Strategic Chaos: Players still play cribbage (cards, pegs, crib), but the gameplay is constantly disrupted by invented rules, turning strategic plays into potential jokes or absurd victories.
Example Calvinball Cribbage “Rules”:
“If you play a 7, you must hop on one foot until your next turn”.
“The crib gets 5 points if it contains a card with a face on it” (referencing Calvin’s drawings).
“A ‘skunk’ is achieved by making your opponent laugh out loud”.
In essence, Calvinball Cribbage is about injecting unpredictable fun and silliness into the structured world of cribbage, making it a game of spontaneous creativity rather than strict strategy. “
This could be an example of sycophantic confabulation because almost all of it was probably cooked up by AI from scanning my blog posts about the subject. What’s a little eerie about it is that I never published any specific rules or strategies about the fictional game of Calvinball crib. You can actually find and purchase a Calvin and Hobbes cribbage board from a shop in Canada.
While this is an example of the occasional comicality of AI, that shouldn’t lead us to deny that it can do scary things, some of which Dr. Dawson describes. My early experiences a couple of years ago with what used to be called Google Bard were somewhat alarming because it confabulated then. And it still does.
I heard a song on the KCCK Big Mo Blues Show that I first heard in June of 2025. The song is “Artificial” by Walter Trout.
At first blush, I agree with what I think is the point of the song, which is basically a protest against artificiality which could manifest in a range of ways from superficiality and dishonesty in communications, attitudes, style of clothing, relationships, and all the way to Artificial Intelligence (AI).
The other connection I make is to the artist himself. Walter Trout developed Hepatitis C (eventually leading to liver transplant) according to a Wikipedia article which connected his lifestyle to contracting the disease. In my role as a consultation-liaison psychiatrist, I saw many patients with Hepatitis C who were referred to psychiatry from gastroenterology.
I was the main psychiatrist who evaluated them for treatment with Interferon-alpha. At the time it was the only treatment for Hepatitis C and was frequently associated with many side effects including depression. I was also one of the psychiatrists consulted as part of liver transplant evaluations.
Trout got very sick from Hepatitis C and made a remarkable (even miraculous) recovery after his liver transplant. Interferon is no longer used to treat Hepatitis C. It has been replaced by direct-acting antiviral (DAA) agents. They’re much better-tolerated and more effective.
The other aspect relevant to Trout’s song is ironic. The newest scientific literature supports the idea that AI can be helpful for diagnosing Hepatitis C, predicting its progression and response to treatment.
That doesn’t mean I’m completely sold on AI.
Aside from that, there’s interesting research suggesting that there may be a link between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and Hepatitis C infection (which could be hiding deep in the brain’s choroid plexus lining the cerebral ventricles). In other words, some people might have mental illness because of the liver disease itself.
If you think about the dictionary definition of the word “artificial,” you can hardly dismiss this kind of research as insincere.
I’m sure you’ve seen the recently published articles on the web encouraging people to try exercising to treat depression. The articles rely on a new systematic review by the Cochrane Database, which you need to carefully interpret—not necessarily the whole paper; you could just skip to the bottom line in the Authors’ Conclusions:
“Authors’ conclusions: Exercise may be moderately more effective than a control intervention for reducing symptoms of depression. Exercise appears to be no more or less effective than psychological or pharmacological treatments, though this conclusion is based on a few small trials. Long-term follow-up was rare. The addition of 35 RCTs (at least 2526 participants) to this update has had very little effect on the estimate of the benefit of exercise on symptoms of depression. If further research is to take place, it should focus on improving trial quality, assessing which characteristics of exercise are effective for different people, and exploring health equity.”
Clegg AJ, Hill JE, Mullin DS, Harris C, Smith CJ, Lightbody CE, Dwan K, Cooney GM, Mead GE, Watkins CL. Exercise for depression. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2026 Jan 8;1(1):CD004366. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD004366.pub7. PMID: 41500513; PMCID: PMC12779368.
As usual, though, several science news web sites talk it up as though it were a big deal. They usually do that at the top and then gradually toward the end of the story they slowly start to confess the truth about the limitations of the review.
I think this type of story could be called filler. It’s content that doesn’t really tell you anything new or earthshaking and most of the time it’s just to fill space left over from the bigger stories.
It’s almost like snake oil. Initially it sounds really good but you know the old saying: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t true.
This reminds me of my early career as an assistant professor of psychiatry at The University of Iowa. My superiors thought it was a great idea for me to give a major presentation (and it might have even been an Internal Medicine Grand Rounds) about adjustment disorders. I admit I was a new guy and somebody had to talk about something that non-psychiatrists might misdiagnose as a major mood or anxiety disorder.
There’s really not a whole lot to say about how to treat adjustment disorders, but it’s important to distinguish them from other major mood and anxiety disorders. That’s not to say adjustment disorders are unimportant. They can cause considerable distress and even some impairment. By and large, clinicians don’t often recommend treating adjustment disorders with medication, although there are exceptions. The diagnostic criteria are pretty clear. Psychotherapy is often the preferred intervention.
On the other hand, exercise could be one way to address the discomfort of some of those who struggle with adjustment disorders.
I want to give a shout-out to Dr. George Dawson on his post today, “Enthusiasm is a plus…” It’s right on the mark.
Having a zest for medicine is the reason why many physicians undertook the rigorous training in medical school, residency, and beyond. A sense of humor is evident in George’s essay—and he doesn’t need to be comedian.
His essay reminded me of the many trainees who took their rotation through the psychiatry consultation service when I was running it (or tried to, anyway!). Many deserve a shout out as well for not only working hard on the service but teaching as well. I prevailed on them to make a short presentation during the rotation. I called it the Dirty Dozen.
They picked a topic often about an interesting consultation case we had seen and put together a talk with a dozen slides. They gave a Dirty Dozen called: “Neurology and Psychiatry: Divided or United?” It included some of Dr. Ron Pies ideas on a subtopic of whether psychiatry and neurology can ever be combined as a discipline (three diagrams of his are in the slides). You can also see a sense of humor, especially in the first slide.
Note: Because I couldn’t locate all of the trainees to get their permission to leave their names on the title slide, I chose to identify them as “Trainees.” I’m still very proud of all of them.
Slides from trainees on Neurology and Psychiatry: Divided or United? from UIHC Psychiatry Consultation Service, 2017. Figures included from Dr. Pies’ article in Psychiatric Times (see below):
Citations:
Arzy, S. Danziger, S. (2014).. “The Science of Neuropsychiatry: Past, Present, and Future.” The Journal of neuropsychiatry and clinical neurosciences 26.4 2014): 392-395.
Daly, R. Pies, R. (2010). Should Psychiatry and Neurology Merge as a Single Discipline? Psychiatric Times.
Fitzgerald, M. (2015). Do psychiatry and neurology need a close partnership or a merger? BJPsych Bulletin, 39(3), 105–107.
Pies, R. (2005). Why psychiatry and neurology cannot simply merge. J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci; 17: 304-309.
Schildkrout, B., Frankel, M. (2016). Neuropsychiatry: Toward Solving the Mysteries That Animate Psychiatry. Psychiatric Times.
Price, BH., Adams RD., Coyle, JT. (2000). Neurology and psychiatry, closing the great divide. Neurology January 11, 2000 vol. 54 no. 18
I was picking up our mail at the mailbox pod this morning around 5:45 a.m. and noticed what looked like a faint circle of color around the nearly full moon in the western sky. There were streaky white clouds. Not far from it and to the left was something that looked like a big star-which I guessed was Venus. It didn’t twinkle like stars do.
I’ve never seen anything like it before. It reminded me of a rainbow and I thought I’d heard something about moonbows (probably on the Weather Channel). By the time Sena got up and I told her about it, she suggested I get a video. By that time, it was pretty much gone, though.
According to one article, this might have been a moon halo, which differs from a moonbow. Moon halos can form from ice crystals. It was about 25 degrees outside.
So, according to some cultures, moon halos might herald bad weather, maybe in a couple of days. On the other hand, it’s going to be pretty quiet around here for next several days.
possible moon halo apossible moon halo bpossible moon halo c
Svengoolie Intro: “Calling all stations! Clear the air lanes! Clear all air lanes for the big broadcast!”
Last night, I watched the Svengoolie movie, “The Creation of the Humanoids,” and I don’t mind telling you, I was reminded of Isaac Asimov’s book, “I, Robot.” Believe it or not, I purposedly avoided reading any other reviews of this movie to see if they mention the possible connection of Asimov’s book with this movie. It preceded the film by 12 years, and it’s at least conceivable that producers and writers might have been inspired by the plot, took the idea of the robot laws from the book and dressed it up in at least some of the dialogue. I think there’s also a connection to Artificial Intelligence (AI) in our own time.
The last two stories in Asimov’s book are “Evidence” and “The Evitable Conflict,” both of which seem to be exemplified in “The Creation of the Humanoids.” They’re both about the conflict between robots and humans and how difficult it is to apply the Laws of Robotics, the first of which is that “a robot not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.”
The robots in the film actually create the humanoids with the overall goal of saving the human race from extinction. And they’re programmed to obey the “Prime Law” which prevents them from killing humans. The psychological conflict of Captain Kenneth Cragis (Don Megowan) and Maxine Megan (Erica Elliot) and the rationale the robots supply for what they did both to and for humans echo the Laws of Robotics.
In the movie, the politics of the racist conflict between the robots and the group calling themselves the members of the Order of Flesh and Blood remind me of the Civil War—right down to the uniforms of the latter and their slur for the robots, which is “Clickers” (substitute another two-syllable slur and you get the idea).
In Asimov’s story “The Evitable Conflict,” something called the Machine takes control of a variety of factors manipulating natural resources, goods, services, and even the social fabric on the planet to protect humans, who have a penchant for overusing and destroying resources and each other. The robots in “The Creation of the Humanoids” do something similar and break the fourth wall to tell you about it.
Anyway, Captain Kenneth Cragis is a member of the Order of Flesh and Blood and reminds me of a character in the 2004 movie “I, Robot,” which is Sonny. An important part of Cragis is hidden from the audience as well as himself.
The dialogue is heavily intellectualized and the robots, which are supposed to be blue, wind up showing up in different colors and those eyes! Cragis and his sister, Esme Cragis Milos (Frances McCann) have a protracted and almost poetic discussion about their differences of opinion about the robots. I wonder if McCann’s revealing dress was intended to distract the audience from the dry declamations.
The scene in which Cragis confronts the robot Pax who has somehow chosen Esme to be his main squeeze is puzzling. Cragis sort of breaks Pax (David Cross) and converts him into a ’57 Chevy, which barely upsets Esme. The scene in which Dr. Raven (Don Doolittle), a robotic scientist, makes some adjustments on a disembodied arm is one example of many which proves why even Svengoolie calls this movie “a low budget” production. The furniture pieces look like they’re made for children; both Cragis and Esme might as well have sat on the floor.
Ok, so this sounds more like a review than my usual fibs and jokes, but I think it’s because the movie reminds me of something that is on a grander scale. Speaking of scales, except for the low production value, I thought movie was pretty good and I would give it a 4/5 Shrilling Chicken Rating. Sena, who watched it this morning, thought it was really good and would give it a 5/5 rating despite “the glassy eyeballs.” So, I’ll give it a 4.5/5.
I just want to send a link to Dr. George Dawson’s post The Phenomenological Suicide Assessment – The Legacy of Dr. H. It’s a great Christmas gift to teachers and learners everywhere. Happy holidays to George and everyone else.
I ran across this article in the news about topological changes that happen in our brains as we age. You can try to read the original open access paper published by the author Alexa Mousley.
The topological changes in the brain that occur in the brain are linked to the structural connections that are made or not in human development and roughly correspond to the main epochs of brain structure in our lives: childhood (transition to adolescence around 9 years old), adolescence lasts until around 32 years old when we finally reach adulthood, then at age 66 we reach the early ageing stage and that finally changes into late ageing or old farthood around age 83. It’s a good thing I retired 5 years ago.
What this says, of course, is that nobody should be getting married or driving until they hit age 32. There are buses, you know, although we do have self-driving cars which explode on impact so thank goodness we don’t need to worry about that.
Also, it implies that you shouldn’t be drafted into military service until you’re presumably old enough to know that war doesn’t solve any problems.
Furthermore, this could lead to earlier retirements, reducing the need for awkward discussions with tenured professors who are apparently unaware they often arrive at the office with their pants on backwards. Just boot them out the door!
Why didn’t we think of this topology thing a long time ago?
For an interesting topology discussion, see the Wikipedia article, which has an interesting photo of something called homeomorphic topology, an amusing example of which is the picture of continuous transformation of a coffee mug into a donut, or as many Iowa City people would prefer, a bagel (something that looks like a doughnut but is so tasteless you have to slather it with a pound of cream cheese).
If you have any questions, call the author of the study. You’re welcome!
Mousley, A., Bethlehem, R.A.I., Yeh, FC. et al. Topological turning points across the human lifespan. Nat Commun16, 10055 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-65974-8
Go Retire Psychiatrist 