It's a bit of a fancy way to say "yes man". Like in corporations or politics, if a leader surrounds themselves with "yes men".
A synonym would be sycophantic which would be "behaving or done in an obsequious way in order to gain advantage." The connotation is the other party misrepresents their own opinion in order to gain favor or avoid disapproval from someone of a higher status. Like when a subordinate tries to guess what their superior wants to hear instead of providing an unbiased response.
I think that accurately describes my experience with some LLMs due to heavy handed RLHF towards agreeableness.
In fact, I think obsequious is a better word since it doesn't have the cynical connotation of sycophant. LLMs don't have a motive and obsequious describes the behavior without specifying the intent.
Yeah, it is very close. But I feel simp has a bit of a sexual feel to it. Like a guy who does favors for a girl expecting affection in return, or donates a lot of money to an OnlyFans or Twitch streamer. I also see simp used where we used to call it white-knighting (e.g. "to simp for").
Obsequious is a bit more general. You could imagine applying it to a waiter or valet who is annoyingly helpful. I don't think it would feel right to use the word simp in that case.
In my day we would call it sucking up. A bit before my time (would sound old timey to me) people called it boot licking. In the novel "Catcher in the Rye", the protagonist uses the word "phony" in a similar way. This kind of behavior is universally disliked so there is a lot slang for it.
A synonym would be sycophantic which would be "behaving or done in an obsequious way in order to gain advantage." The connotation is the other party misrepresents their own opinion in order to gain favor or avoid disapproval from someone of a higher status. Like when a subordinate tries to guess what their superior wants to hear instead of providing an unbiased response.
I think that accurately describes my experience with some LLMs due to heavy handed RLHF towards agreeableness.
In fact, I think obsequious is a better word since it doesn't have the cynical connotation of sycophant. LLMs don't have a motive and obsequious describes the behavior without specifying the intent.