> Your question diverts it down a path where it acts the part of a former sycophant who is now being critical

I think people really have a hard time understanding a sycophant can be contrarian. But a yesman can say yes by saying no

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47484664

An alternate way of thinking about it is LLMs have no reflection capability. Literally any “reflection” it claims to have about its decision making is made up. It has absolutely no way know that what it said was based on some ancient proverb, the phase of the moon or cold hard rational thought.

I think “admit” here is just a description of what the LLM was saying. It doesn’t imply that the OP thinks the LLM has internal beliefs matching that.