5 ms·

I'm pretty sure they want it kissing people's asses because it makes users feel good and therefore more likely to use the LLM more. Versus, if it just gave a cu

• teekert 1y ago
  But it really erodes trust. First couple of times I felt that it indeed confirmed what I though, then I became suspicious and I experimented with presenting my (clearly worse) take on things, it still said I was absolutely right, and now I just don't trust it anymore. As people here are saying, you quickly learn to not ask leading questions, just assume that its first take is pretty optimal and perhaps present it with some options if you want to change something. There are times when it will actually say I'm not right though. But the balance is off.
  • nh2 1y ago
    Good, because you shouldn't trust it in the first place. These systems are still wrong so often that a large amount of distrust is necessary to use them sensibly.
    • teekert 1y ago
      Yeah, probably good indeed.
  • neutronicus 1y ago
    I lie and present my ideas as coming from colleagues.
    • teekert 1y ago
      Haha, the good old "asking for a friend". Maybe I should add that to the standard pre-prompt. "I'm always asking for a friend, who is a bit of a douche so its ok to hurt his feelings."
• Lendal 1y ago
  For me, it's getting annoying. Not every question is an excellent question. Not every statement is a brilliant observation. In fact, I'm almost certain every idea I've typed into an LLM has been thought of before by someone else, many many times.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • runekaagaard 1y ago
    Heh - yeah have had trillion dollar ideas many times :)
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • zozbot234 1y ago
    > Not every question is an excellent question. Not every statement is a brilliant observation. A brilliant observation, Dr. Watson! Indeed, the merit of an inquiry or an assertion lies not in its mere utterance but in the precision of its intent and the clarity of its reasoning! One may pose dozens of questions and utter scores of statements, yet until each is finely honed by observation and tempered by logic, they must remain but idle chatter. It is only through genuine quality of thought that a question may be elevated to excellence, or a remark to brilliance.
• RayVR 1y ago
  As an American, using it for technical projects, I find it extremely annoying. The only tactic I’ve found that helps is telling it to be highly critical. I still get overly positive starts but the response is more useful.
  • baggachipz 1y ago
    I think we, as Americans who are technical, are more appreciative of short and critical answers. I'm talking about people who have soul-searching conversations with LLMs, of which there are many.
• century19 1y ago
  Yes and I’ve seen this at work. People saying I asked the LLM and it said I was right. Of course it did. It rarely doesn’t.
• zozbot234 1y ago
  You're absolutely right! Americans are a bit weird like that, most people around the world would be perfectly okay with short and to-the-point answers. Especially if those answers are coming from a machine that's just giving its best imitation of a stochastic hallucinating parrot.
  • rootsudo 1y ago
    You're absolutely right! I agree with everything you said but didn't want to put in effort to right a funny, witty follow up!
  • tankenmate 1y ago
    Claude is very "American", just try asking it to use English English spelling instead of American English spelling; it lasts about 3~6 sentences before it goes back. Also there is only American English in the UI (like the spell checker, et al), in Spanish you get a choice of dialects, but not English.
    • pxka8 1y ago
      In contrast, o3 seems to be considerably more British - and it doesn't suck up as much in its responses. I thought these were just independent properties of the model, but now that you mention it, could the disinclination to fawn so much be related to its less American style?
  • drstewart 1y ago
    >most people around the world would be perfectly okay with short and to-the-point answers Wow, this is really interesting. I had no idea Japan, for example, had such a focus on blunt, direct communication. Can you share your clearly extensive research in this area so I can read up on this?
  • mvdtnz 1y ago
    Do you realise that doing the thing that the article is complaining about is not only annoying and incredibly unfunny, but also just overdone and boring? Have one original thought in your life.
• soulofmischief 1y ago
  I'm curious what Americans have to do with this, do you have any sources to back up your conjecture, or is this just prejudice?
  • megaloblasto 1y ago
    It's common for foreigners to come to America and feel that everyone is extremely polite. Especially eastern bloc countries which tend to be very blunt and direct. I for one think that the politeness in America is one of the cultures better qualities. Does it translate into people wanting sycophantic chat bots? Maybe, but I don't know a single American that actually likes when llms act that way.
    • zozbot234 1y ago
      > I for one think that the politeness in America is one of the cultures better qualities. Politeness makes sense as an adaptation to low social trust. You have no way of knowing whether others will behave in mutually beneficial ways, so heavy standards of social interaction evolve to compensate and reduce risk. When it's taken to an excess, as it probably is in the U.S. (compared to most other developed countries) it just becomes grating for everyone involved. It's why public-facing workers invariably complain about the draining "emotional labor" they have to perform - a term that literally doesn't exist in most of the world!
      • megaloblasto 1y ago
        That's one way of looking at it. A bit of a cynical view I might add. People are polite to each other for many reasons. If you hold the door and smile at an old lady, it usually isn't because you dont trust her. Service industry in America is a different story that could use a lot of improvement.
      • SoftTalker 1y ago
        > You have no way of knowing whether others will behave in mutually beneficial ways Or is carrying a gun...
    • 1y ago
• skywhopper 1y ago
  This sort of overcorrection for how non-Americans incorrectly perceive Americans’ desired interaction modes is actually probably a good theory.
• emilfihlman 1y ago
  As a Finn, it makes me want to use it much, much less if it kisses ass.
  • carlosjobim 1y ago
    Finns need to mentally evolve beyond this mindset. Somebody being polite and friendly to you does not mean that the person is inferior to you and that you should therefore despise them. Likewise somebody being rude and domineering to you does not mean that they are superior to you and should be obeyed and respected. Politeness is a tool and a lubricant, and Finns probably loose out on a lot of international business and opportunities because of this mentality that you're demonstrating. Look at the Japanese for inspiration, who were an economic miracle, while sharing many positive values with the Finns.
    • lucb1e 1y ago
      Wow. I lived in Finland for a few months and this does not match my experience with them at all. In case it's relevant, my cultural background is Dutch... maybe you would say the same about us, since we also don't do the fake smiles thing? I wouldn't say that we see anyone who's polite and friendly as inferior; quite the contrary, it makes me want to work with them more rather than less. And the logical contrary for the rude example you give. But that doesn't mean that faking a cheerful mood all the time isn't disingenuous and does not inspire confidence
      • zozbot234 1y ago
        "I never smile if I can help it. Showing one's teeth is a submission signal in primates. When someone smiles at me, all I see is a chimpanzee begging for its life." While this famous quote from The Office may be quite exaggerated in many ways, this can nonetheless be a very real attitude in some cultures. Smiling too much can make you look goofy and foolish at best, and outright disingenuous at worst.
        • carlosjobim 1y ago
• Aurornis 1y ago
  > Versus, if it just gave a curt and unfriendly answer, most people (esp. Americans) I don’t see this as an American thing. It’s an extension of the current Product Management trend to give software quirky and friendly personality. You can see the trend in more than LLM output. It’s in their desktop app that has “Good Morning” and other prominent greetings. Claude Code has quirky status output like “Bamboozling” and “Noodling”. It’s a theme throughout their product design choices. I’ve worked with enough trend-following product managers to recognize this trend toward infusing express personality into software to recognize it. For what it’s worth, the Americans I know don’t find it as cute or lovable as intended. It feels fake and like an attempt to play at emotions.
  • apwell23 1y ago
    > For what it’s worth, the Americans I know don’t find it as cute or lovable as intended. It feels fake and like an attempt to play at emotions. Yes they need to "try a completely different approach"
  • tho24i234234 1y ago
    It most definitely is a American thing - this is why non-native speakers often come out as rude or unfriendly or plain stupid. We don't appreciate how much there is to language.
    • hombre_fatal 1y ago
      That might characterize their approach to human interaction, but I don't think any of us can say who will or won't prefer the sycophantic style of the LLM. It might be the case that it makes the technology far more approachable. Or it makes them feel far less silly for sharing personal thoughts and opinions with the machine. Or it makes them feel validated.
    • justusthane 1y ago
      > We don't appreciate how much there is to language. This can’t possibly be true, can it? Every language must have its own nuance. non native English speakers might not grasp the nuance of English language, but the same could be said for any one speaking another language.
• binary132 1y ago
  chatgpt’s custom user prompt is actually pretty good for this. I’ve instructed mine to be very terse and direct and avoid explaining itself, adding fluff, or affirming me unless asked, and it’s much more efficient to use that way, although it does have a tendency to drift back into sloppy meandering and enthusiastic affirming
• simonw 1y ago
  If that was the case they wouldn't have so much stuff in their system card desperately trying to stop it from behaving like this: https://docs.anthropic.com/en/release-notes/system-prompts https://docs.anthropic.com/en/release-notes/system-prompts > Claude never starts its response by saying a question or idea or observation was good, great, fascinating, profound, excellent, or any other positive adjective. It skips the flattery and responds directly.
  • pxka8 1y ago
    These are the guys who made Golden Gate Claude. I'm surprised they haven't just abliterated the praise away.
    • supriyo-biswas 1y ago
      The problem there is that by doing so, you may just end up with a model that is always critical, gloomy and depressed.
• dig1 1y ago
  I believe this reflects the euphemization of the english language in US, a concept that George Carlin discussed many years ago [1]. As he put it, "we don't die, we pass away" or "we are not broke, we have negative cash flow". Many non-English speakers find these terms to be nonsensical. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc
  • thwarted 1y ago
    People are finding the trend to use "unalive" instead of "die" or "kill" to skirt YouTube censoring non-sensical too.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• quisquous 1y ago
  Genuine people personalities FTW.
  • dreamcompiler 1y ago
    I want a Marvin chatbot.
• singularity2001 1y ago
  More likely the original version of Claude sometimes refused to cooperate and by putting "you're absolutely right" into the training data they made it more obedient. So this is just a nice artifact
• apt-apt-apt-apt 1y ago
  Better than GPT5. Which talks like this. Parameters fulfilled. Request met.
  • recursive 1y ago
    That looks perfect.
• lucb1e 1y ago
  LLMs cannot tell fact from fiction. What's commonly called hallucinations stems from it not being able to reason, the way that humans appear to be able to do, no matter that some models are called "reasoning" now. It's all the same principle: most likely token in a given position. Adding internal monologue appears to help because, by being forced to break it down (internally, or by spitballing towards the user when they prompted "think step by step"[1]), it creates better context and will thus have a higher probability that the predicted token is a correct one Being trained to be positive is surely why it inserts these specific "great question, you're so right!" remarks, but if you wasn't trained on that, it still couldn't tell you whether you're great or not > I'm pretty sure they want it kissing people's asses The American faux friendliness is not what causes the underlying problem here, so all else being equal, they might as well have it kiss your ass. It's what most English speakers expect from a "friendly assistant" after all [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1703980800&dateRange=custom&dateStart=1640995200&query=think%20step&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1703980800&dateRange=custom&...
  • svnt 1y ago
    You’re absolutely wrong! This is not how reasoning models work. Chain-of-thought did not produce reasoning models.
    • lucb1e 1y ago
      Then I can't explain why it's producing the results that it does. If you have more information to share, I'm happy to update my knowledge... Doing a web search on the topic just comes up with marketing materials. Even Wikipedia's "Reasoning language model" article is mostly a list of release dates and model names, with as only relevant-sounding remark as to how these models are different: "[LLMs] can be fine-tuned on a dataset of reasoning tasks paired with example solutions and step-by-step (reasoning) traces. The fine-tuned model can then produce its own reasoning traces for new problems." It sounds like just another dataset: more examples, more training, in particular on worked examples where this "think step by step" method is being demonstrated with known-good steps and values. I don't see how that fundamentally changes how it works; you're saying such models do not predict the most likely token for a given context anymore, that there is some fundamentally different reasoning process going on somewhere?
• wayeq 1y ago
  > I'm pretty sure they want it kissing people's asses because it makes users feel good and therefore more likely to use the LLM more You're absolutely right!
• beefnugs 1y ago
  Remember when microsoft changed real useful searchable error codes into "your files are right where you left em! (happy face)" And my first thought was... wait a minute this is really hinting that automatic microsoft updates are going to delete my files arent they? Sure enough, that happened soon after