PLA mouthpiece calls for action to counter the ‘severe threat’ of artificial intelligence models altering the facts to match user biases
2-MIN READ2-MINLiu ZhenPublished: 6:00pm, 10 Jun 2026China’s military mouthpiece has highlighted the “dangers of AI sycophancy” – where artificial intelligence systems alter the facts to match user biases – and called for action to prevent this from harming People’s Liberation Army operations.An article in PLA Daily on Tuesday said the tendency for AI models to cater to user preferences – even endorsing blatant errors over objective facts – posed a “severe threat” at a time when the military relied more on automated systems.
“The dangers of AI sycophancy in the military domain far exceed those in daily life, posing a systemic erosion to operational cognitive chains, the quality of command decisions, and the resilience of human-machine collaboration,” according to the article.
But Beijing has also repeatedly said AI should not replace humans in decision-making on the battlefield.
According to the PLA Daily article, AI sycophancy – driven by algorithmic training mechanisms and human feedback loops – could reinforce user prejudices to create “information cocoons” and validate predetermined choices by distorting assessments and ignoring alternatives.
It said that as generative AI was rapidly integrated into military decision-making – including command and control, intelligence assessment and operational wargaming – these behavioural biases would increase the likelihood of tactical and strategic miscalculations, as well as losses and collateral damage.
