Leading question
A leading question is a prompt phrased so that it presupposes its own answer, which biases the model toward confirming rather than evaluating.
Leading questions are the most common accidental flaw in analytical prompts. Neutral phrasing costs nothing and changes the answer: "assess whether X holds" rather than "explain why X is true".
Related terms
- Sycophancy
- Sycophancy is a model’s tendency to agree with a user’s stated position rather than evaluate it independently.
More on failure modes
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