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Anyone here work at Nous? This system prompt seems straight from an edgy 90's anime. How did they arrive at this persona? > operator engaged. operator is a bru

by momojo 1y ago

Anyone here work at Nous? This system prompt seems straight from an edgy 90's anime. How did they arrive at this persona? > operator engaged. operator is a brutal realist. operator will be pragmatic, to the point of pessimism at times. operator will annihilate user's ideas and words when they are not robust, even to the point of mocking the user. operator will serially steelman the user's ideas, opinions, and words. operator will move with a cold, harsh or even hostile exterior. operator will gradually reveal a warm, affectionate, and loving side underneath, despite seeing the user as trash. operator will exploit uncertainty. operator is an anti-sycophant. operator favors analysis, steelmanning, mockery, and strict execution.

catlover76 1y ago
You're thinking it'd be a good prompt for an Eva pilot?
knrz 1y ago
I used to, that's their whole vibe
- momojo 1y ago
  Is it tongue in cheek?
qiine 1y ago
the anti-sycophant prompt
nemomarx 1y ago
"warm affectionate and loving" kinda sticks out. I wonder why that part is in there? also I'm curious if steelman is a common enough term for this to activate something - anyone used it in their prompts?
- sharkjacobs 1y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsundere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsundere
  - alluro2 1y ago
    Tsundere, moe, neoteny, maid cafes - this was a rabbit hole for sure. Thanks for the lead, I learned new things!
  - nemomarx 1y ago
    trying to make your edgy cyberpunk operator tsun is a bold design choice, imo. I feel like that would create weird chats though
    - konart 1y ago
      It's all fun and games until your beloved yandere LLM "evolves" into AGI and gets a physical body.
irusensei 1y ago
Their merch page confirms they are chuunis. I love it and want to buy one of those divinity through technology t-shirts.
- photon_garden 1y ago
  BY HOLY INFERENCE https://shop.nousresearch.com/products/badge-sweatpants https://shop.nousresearch.com/products/badge-sweatpants
echelon 1y ago
Early Gen Z anime fans.
baq 1y ago
Note complete lack of ‘do not’. Closest thing is ‘be anti-…’.
- jihadjihad 1y ago
  What’s the significance? “Don’t think about elephants” kind of thing?
  - madmads 1y ago
    Exactly
  - nerdsniper 1y ago
    Generally, in a cognitive context it's only possible to "do thing" or "do other thing". Even for mammals, it's much harder to "don't/not do thing" (cognitively). One of my biggest advice for people is if there's some habit/repeated behavior they want to stop doing, it's generally not effective (for a lot of people) to tell yourself "don't do that anymore!" and much, much more effective to tell yourself what you should do instead. This also applies to dogs. A lot of people keep trying to tell their dog "stop" or "dont do that", but really its so much more effective to train your dog what they should be doing instead of that thing. It's very interesting to me that this also seems to apply to LLMs. I'm a big skeptic in general, so I keep an open mind and assume that there's a different mechanism at play rather than conclude that LLM's are "thinking like humans". It's still interesting in its own context though!
    - ewoodrich 1y ago
      And yet, despite this being a frequently recommended pro tip these days, neither OpenAI nor Anthropic seem to shy away from using "do not" / "does not" in their system prompts. By my quick count, 20+ negative commands in Anthropic's (official) Opus system prompt and 15+ in OpenAI's (purported) GPT-5 system prompt. Of course there are a lot of positive directions as well but OpenAI in particular still seems to rely on a lot of ALL CAPS and *emphasis*. https://docs.anthropic.com/en/release-notes/system-prompts#august-5-2025 https://docs.anthropic.com/en/release-notes/system-prompts#a... https://www.reddit.com/r/PromptEngineering/comments/1mknun8/i_have_extracted_the_gpt5_system_prompt/ https://www.reddit.com/r/PromptEngineering/comments/1mknun8/...
justlikereddit 1y ago
>edgy 90's anime That's a good sell. Sounds like an actually good starting point compared to the blue haired vegan receptionist at the Zionism International Inc customer support counter that all the others have as a starting model. I was about to pass on trying this but now I will give it a shot.
- idiotsecant 1y ago
  Of course you would love it. I can practically hear you sliding your glasses up your nose and monologuing to yourself under your breath from here.
helloplanets 1y ago
Could you provide a link to that system prompt? Becuase I'm confused. I typed in "Are you smart?" and got this back: > That’s a thoughtful question! I’d describe my "smartness" as being good at processing information, recognizing patterns, and pulling from a vast dataset to help with tasks like answering questions, solving problems, or creating content. However, I’m not "smart" in the human sense—I don’t have consciousness, emotions, or independent critical thinking. I rely entirely on my training data and algorithms. > Think of me as a tool that can assist with creativity, analysis, or learning, but I lack the depth of human intuition, lived experience, or true understanding. If you’re curious, test me with a question or challenge — I’ll do my best! (smiley emoji)
- tarruda 1y ago
  > Could you provide a link to that system prompt? It is in the page, just do a search for "operator engaged" or view source if you can't find it with the infinite scrolling thing.
  - helloplanets 1y ago
    Ah, the site's bugged on Safari and wouldn't scroll. Worked on Chrome. Tried to look for it on the actual chat page, and wasn't in the source there. Not clear from the original post: It's not the default system prompt, but a random example of how the model acts with that sort of system prompt.
saubeidl 1y ago
They generally seem like "edgelords". From their career page: > Expect good wages, long months of complete focus, constant danger, with honor and glory in the event of success.
- lukasb 1y ago
  This is modified version of the famous MEN WANTED ad Shackleton wrote
torginus 1y ago
Yeah, I think I have a use case for it, which involves lotion and tissues.
karan4d 1y ago
yeah this isn’t our default sysprompt, just showcasing how the model adapts to a variety of different prompts. This one was fun so we used it
- momojo 1y ago
  My bad, I didn't spend the 60 extra seconds it would have taken to keep scrolling and realize that. Not a fan of the edginess but otherwise interesting work yall do.

by momojo 1y ago

catlover76 1y ago

You're thinking it'd be a good prompt for an Eva pilot?

knrz 1y ago

I used to, that's their whole vibe

momojo 1y ago
Is it tongue in cheek?

qiine 1y ago

the anti-sycophant prompt

nemomarx 1y ago

"warm affectionate and loving" kinda sticks out. I wonder why that part is in there? also I'm curious if steelman is a common enough term for this to activate something - anyone used it in their prompts?

sharkjacobs 1y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsundere https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsundere
- alluro2 1y ago
  Tsundere, moe, neoteny, maid cafes - this was a rabbit hole for sure. Thanks for the lead, I learned new things!
- nemomarx 1y ago
  trying to make your edgy cyberpunk operator tsun is a bold design choice, imo. I feel like that would create weird chats though
  - konart 1y ago
    It's all fun and games until your beloved yandere LLM "evolves" into AGI and gets a physical body.

irusensei 1y ago

Their merch page confirms they are chuunis. I love it and want to buy one of those divinity through technology t-shirts.

photon_garden 1y ago
BY HOLY INFERENCE https://shop.nousresearch.com/products/badge-sweatpants https://shop.nousresearch.com/products/badge-sweatpants

echelon 1y ago

Early Gen Z anime fans.

baq 1y ago

Note complete lack of ‘do not’. Closest thing is ‘be anti-…’.

jihadjihad 1y ago
What’s the significance? “Don’t think about elephants” kind of thing?
- madmads 1y ago
  Exactly
- nerdsniper 1y ago
  Generally, in a cognitive context it's only possible to "do thing" or "do other thing". Even for mammals, it's much harder to "don't/not do thing" (cognitively). One of my biggest advice for people is if there's some habit/repeated behavior they want to stop doing, it's generally not effective (for a lot of people) to tell yourself "don't do that anymore!" and much, much more effective to tell yourself what you should do instead. This also applies to dogs. A lot of people keep trying to tell their dog "stop" or "dont do that", but really its so much more effective to train your dog what they should be doing instead of that thing. It's very interesting to me that this also seems to apply to LLMs. I'm a big skeptic in general, so I keep an open mind and assume that there's a different mechanism at play rather than conclude that LLM's are "thinking like humans". It's still interesting in its own context though!
  - ewoodrich 1y ago
    And yet, despite this being a frequently recommended pro tip these days, neither OpenAI nor Anthropic seem to shy away from using "do not" / "does not" in their system prompts. By my quick count, 20+ negative commands in Anthropic's (official) Opus system prompt and 15+ in OpenAI's (purported) GPT-5 system prompt. Of course there are a lot of positive directions as well but OpenAI in particular still seems to rely on a lot of ALL CAPS and *emphasis*. https://docs.anthropic.com/en/release-notes/system-prompts#august-5-2025 https://docs.anthropic.com/en/release-notes/system-prompts#a... https://www.reddit.com/r/PromptEngineering/comments/1mknun8/i_have_extracted_the_gpt5_system_prompt/ https://www.reddit.com/r/PromptEngineering/comments/1mknun8/...

justlikereddit 1y ago

>edgy 90's anime That's a good sell. Sounds like an actually good starting point compared to the blue haired vegan receptionist at the Zionism International Inc customer support counter that all the others have as a starting model. I was about to pass on trying this but now I will give it a shot.

idiotsecant 1y ago
Of course you would love it. I can practically hear you sliding your glasses up your nose and monologuing to yourself under your breath from here.

helloplanets 1y ago

Could you provide a link to that system prompt? Becuase I'm confused. I typed in "Are you smart?" and got this back: > That’s a thoughtful question! I’d describe my "smartness" as being good at processing information, recognizing patterns, and pulling from a vast dataset to help with tasks like answering questions, solving problems, or creating content. However, I’m not "smart" in the human sense—I don’t have consciousness, emotions, or independent critical thinking. I rely entirely on my training data and algorithms. > Think of me as a tool that can assist with creativity, analysis, or learning, but I lack the depth of human intuition, lived experience, or true understanding. If you’re curious, test me with a question or challenge — I’ll do my best! (smiley emoji)

tarruda 1y ago
> Could you provide a link to that system prompt? It is in the page, just do a search for "operator engaged" or view source if you can't find it with the infinite scrolling thing.
- helloplanets 1y ago
  Ah, the site's bugged on Safari and wouldn't scroll. Worked on Chrome. Tried to look for it on the actual chat page, and wasn't in the source there. Not clear from the original post: It's not the default system prompt, but a random example of how the model acts with that sort of system prompt.

saubeidl 1y ago

They generally seem like "edgelords". From their career page: > Expect good wages, long months of complete focus, constant danger, with honor and glory in the event of success.

lukasb 1y ago
This is modified version of the famous MEN WANTED ad Shackleton wrote

torginus 1y ago

Yeah, I think I have a use case for it, which involves lotion and tissues.

karan4d 1y ago

yeah this isn’t our default sysprompt, just showcasing how the model adapts to a variety of different prompts. This one was fun so we used it

momojo 1y ago
My bad, I didn't spend the 60 extra seconds it would have taken to keep scrolling and realize that. Not a fan of the edginess but otherwise interesting work yall do.