Idea Ripper // ArchiveCards: 1555 [Live] | Updated: 2026-10-14
Card #c464IR // #c464Synthesis

The XY problem is the trap where someone asks for help with their attempted solution instead of describing the actual problem. They ask how to do X when X was only ever their guess at fixing Y. The helper then solves the wrong problem perfectly.

— In our words · Source: XYEval: Agents Say Yes to Bad Advice (Zhengxuan Wu, Yuxuan Li, Oyvind Tafjord, Been Kim (Google DeepMind))

[Use when]

Someone asks a confident, specific question: check whether they are asking about their real problem or just their attempted fix.

[Why it matters]

This is the oldest communication bug in technical help, and it ports directly to AI agents. The user arrives confident about the wrong thing, and confidence is contagious. An agent that takes the user's framing at face value inherits the user's mistake before the work even starts. The paper's whole project is one question: can the agent notice the frame is wrong, and say so?

More from XYEval: Agents Say Yes to Bad Advice

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