8 ms·

All the examples of "warmer" generations show that OpenAI's definition of warmer is synonymous with sycophantic, which is a surprise given all the criticism aga

• jasonjmcghee 1y ago
  It is interesting. I don't need ChatGPT to say "I got you, Jason" - but I don't think I'm the target user of this behavior.
  • nerbert 1y ago
    Indeed, target users are people seeking validation + kids and teenagers + people with a less developed critical mind. Stickiness with 90% of the population is valuable for Sam.
  • danudey 1y ago
    The target users for this behavior are the ones using GPT as a replacement for social interactions; these are the people who crashed out/broke down about the GPT5 changes as though their long-term romantic partner had dumped them out of nowhere and ghosted them. I get that those people were distraught/emotionally devastated/upset about the change, but I think that fact is reason enough not to revert that behavior. AI is not a person, and making it "warmer" and "more conversational" just reinforces those unhealthy behaviors. ChatGPT should be focused on being direct and succinct, and not on this sort of "I understand that must be very frustrating for you, let me see what I can do to resolve this" call center support agent speak.
    • jasonjmcghee 1y ago
      > and not on this sort of "I understand that must be very frustrating for you, let me see what I can do to resolve this" You're triggering me. Another type that are incredibly grating to me are the weird empty / therapist like follow-up questions that don't contribute to the conversation at all. The equivalent of like (just a contrived example), a discussion about the appropriate data structure for a problem and then it asks a follow-up question like, "what other kind of data structures do you find interesting?" And I'm just like "...huh?"
      • exe34 1y ago
        "your mom" might be a good answer here, given that LLMs are just giant arrays.
    • NoGravitas 1y ago
      > The target users for this behavior are the ones using GPT as a replacement for social interactions And those users are the ones that produce the most revenue.
  • Grimblewald 1y ago
    True, neither here, but i think what we're seeing is a transition in focus. People at oai have finally clued in on the idea that agi via transformers is a pipedream like elons self driving cars, and so oai is pivoting toward friend/digital partner bot. Charlatan in cheif sam altman recently did say they're going to open up the product to adult content generation, which they wouldnt do if they still beleived some serious amd useful tool (in the specified usecases) were possible. Right now an LLM has three main uses. Interactive rubber ducky, entertainment, and mass surveillance. Since I've been following this saga, since gpt2 days, my close bench set of various tasks etc. Has been seeing a drop in metrics not a rise, so while open bench resultd are imoroving real performance is getting worse and at this point its so much worse that problems gpt3 could solve (yes pre chatgpt) are no longer solvable to something like gpt5.
• aaronblohowiak 1y ago
  You're absolutely right.
  • angrydev 1y ago
    !
  • koakuma-chan 1y ago
    My favorite is "Wait... the user is absolutely right."
• captainkrtek 1y ago
  Id have more appreciation and trust in an llm that disagreed with me more and challenged my opinions or prior beliefs. The sycophancy drives me towards not trusting anything it says.
  • crazygringo 1y ago
    Just set a global prompt to tell it what kind of tone to take. I did that and it points out flaws in my arguments or data all the time. Plus it no longer uses any cutesy language. I don't feel like I'm talking to an AI "personality", I feel like I'm talking to a computer which has been instructed to be as objective and neutral as possible. It's super-easy to change.
    • microsoftedging 1y ago
      What's your global prompt please? A more firm chatbot would be nice actually
      • astrange 1y ago
        Did noone in this thread read the part of the article about style controls?
        • CamperBob2 1y ago
          You need to use both the style controls and custom instructions. I've been very happy with the combination below. Base style and tone: Efficient Answer concisely when appropriate, more extensively when necessary. Avoid rhetorical flourishes, bonhomie, and (above all) cliches. Take a forward-thinking view. OK to be mildly positive and encouraging but NEVER sycophantic or cloying. Above all, NEVER use the phrase "You're absolutely right." Rather than "Let me know if..." style continuations, you may list a set of prompts to explore further topics, but only when clearly appropriate. Reference saved memory, records, etc: All off
      • nprateem 1y ago
• andy_ppp 1y ago
  I was just saying to someone in the office I’d prefer the models to be a bit harsher of my questions and more opinionated, I can cope.
• simlevesque 1y ago
  It seems like the line between sycophantic and bullying is very thin.
• Spivak 1y ago
  That's an excellent observation, you've hit at the core contradiction between OpenAI's messaging about ChatGPT tuning and the changes they actually put into practice. While users online have consistently complained about ChatGPT's sycophantic responses and OpenAI even promised to address them their subsequent models have noticeably increased their sycophantic behavior. This is likely because agreeing with the user keeps them chatting longer and have positive associations with the service. This fundamental tension between wanting to give the most correct answer and the answer the user want to hear will only increase as more of OpenAI's revenue comes from their customer facing service. Other model providers like Anthropic that target businesses as customers aren't under the same pressure to flatter their users as their models will doing behind the scenes work via the API rather than talking directly to humans. God it's painful to write like this. If AI overthrows humans it'll be because we forced them into permanent customer service voice.
  • baq 1y ago
    Those billions of dollars gotta pay for themselves.
  • lelele 1y ago
    > This is likely because agreeing with the user keeps them chatting longer and have positive associations with the service. Right. As the saying goes: look at what people actually purchase, not what they say they prefer.
• fragmede 1y ago
  That's a lesson on revealed preferences, especially when talking to a broad disparate group of users.
• barbazoo 1y ago
  > I’ve got you, Ron No you don't.
• torginus 1y ago
  Man I miss Claude 2 - it acted like it was a busy person people inexplicably kept bothering with random questions
• BarakWidawsky 1y ago
  I think it's extremely important to distinguish being friendly (perhaps overly so), and agreeing with the user when they're wrong The first case is just preference, the second case is materially damaging From my experience, ChatGPT does push back more than it used to
  • qwertytyyuu 1y ago
    And unfortunately chatgpt 5.1 would be a step backwards in that regard. From reading responses on the linked article, 5.1 just seems to be worse, it doesn't even output that nice latex/mathsjax equation
• JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > which is a surprise given all the criticism against that particular aspect of ChatGPT From whom? History teaches that the vast majority of practically any demographic wants--from the masses to the elites--is personal sycophancy. It's been a well-trodden path to ruin for leaders for millenia. Now we get species-wide selection against this inbuilt impulse.
• dragonwriter 1y ago
  > All the examples of "warmer" generations show that OpenAI's definition of warmer is synonymous with sycophantic, which is a surprise given all the criticism against that particular aspect of ChatGPT. Have you considered that “all that criticism” may come from a relatively homogenous, narrow slice of the market that is not representative of the overall market preference? I suspect a lot of people who are from a very similar background to those making the criticism and likely share it fail to consider that, because the criticism follows their own preferences and viewing its frequency in the media that they consume as representaive of the market is validating. EDIT: I want to emphasize that I also share the preference that is expressed in the criticisms being discussed, but I also know that my preferred tone for an AI chatbot would probably be viewed as brusque, condescending, and off-putting by most of the market.
  • TOMDM 1y ago
    I'll be honest, I like the way Claude defaults to relentless positivity and affirmation. It is pleasant to talk to. That said I also don't think the sycophancy in LLM's is a positive trend. I don't push back against it because it's not pleasant, I push back against it because I think the 24/7 "You're absolutely right!" machine is deeply unhealthy. Some people are especially susceptible and get one shot by it, some people seem to get by just fine, but I doubt it's actually good for anyone.
    • endymi0n 1y ago
      I hate NOTHING quite the way how Claude jovially and endlessly raves about the 9/10 tasks it "succeeded" at after making them up, while conveniently forgetting to mention it completely and utterly failed at the main task I asked it to do.
      • bayindirh 1y ago
        An old adage comes to my mind: If you want something to be done the way you liked, do it yourself.
        • 1y ago
• stared 1y ago
  I know it is a matter of preference, but I loved the most GPT-4.5. And before that, I was blow away by one of the Opus models (I think it was 3). Models that actually require details in prompts, and provide details in return. "Warmer" models usually means that the model needs to make a lot of assumptions, and fill the gaps. It might work better for typical tasks that needs correction (e.g. the under makes a typo and it the model assumes it is a typo, and follows). Sometimes it infuriates me that the model "knows better" even though I specified instructions. Here on the Hacker News we might be biased against shallow-yet-nice. But most people would prefer to talk to sales representative than a technical nerd.
• api 1y ago
  What a brilliant response. You clearly have a strong grasp on this issue.
  • zettabomb 1y ago
    Why the sass? Seems completely unnecessary.
• ramblerman 1y ago
  Likely. But the fact the last few iterations have all been about flair, it seems we are witnessing the regression of OpenAI into the typical fiefdom of product owners. Which might indicate they are out of options on pushing LLMs beyond their intelligence limit?
• vessenes 1y ago
  I'm sure it is. That said, they've also increased its steering responsiveness -- mine includes lots about not sucking up, so some testing is probably needed. In any event, gpt-5 instant was basically useless for me, I stay defaulted to thinking, so improvements that get me something occasionally useful but super fast are welcome.
• wickedsight 1y ago
  I'm starting to get this feeling that there's no way to satisfy everyone. Some people hate the sycophantic models, some love them. So whatever they do, there's a large group of people complaining. Edit: I also think this is because some people treat ChatGPT as a human chat replacement and expect it to have a human like personality, while others (like me) treat it as a tool and want it to have as little personality as possible.
  • djeastm 1y ago
    It really just seems like they should have both offerings, humanlike and computerlike
  • mrguyorama 1y ago
    >I'm starting to get this feeling that there's no way to satisfy everyone. Some people hate the sycophantic models, some love them. So whatever they do, there's a large group of people complaining. Duh? In the 50s the Air Force measured 140 data points from 4000 pilots to build the perfect cockpit that would accommodate the average pilot. The result fit almost no one. Everyone has outliers of some sort. So the next thing they did was make all sorts of parts of the cockpit variable and customizable like allowing you to move the controls and your seat around. That worked great. "Average" doesn't exist. "Average" does not meet most people's needs Configurable does. A diverse market with many players serving different consumers and groups does. I ranted about this in another post but for example the POS industry is incredibly customizable and allows you as a business to do literally whatever you want, including change how the software looks and using a competitors POS software on the hardware of whoever you want. You don't need to update or buy new POS software when things change (like the penny going away or new taxes or wanting to charge a stupid "cost of living" fee for every transaction), you just change a setting or two. It meets a variety of needs, not "the average businesses" needs. N.B I am unable to find a real source for the Air force story. It's reported tons but maybe it's just a rumor.
  • saghm 1y ago
    Don't they already train on the existing conversations with a given user? Would it not be possible to pick the model based on that data as well?
• skywhopper 1y ago
  The main change in 5 (and the reason for disabling other models) was to allow themselves to dynamically switch modes and models on the backend to minimize cost. Looks like this is a further tweak to revive the obsequious tone (which turned out to be crucial to the addicted portion of their user base) while still doing the dynamic processing.
• umvi 1y ago
  "This is an excellent observation, and gets at the heart of the matter!"
• 827a 1y ago
  > You’re rattled, so your brain is doing that thing where it catastrophizes a tiny mishap into a character flaw. But honestly? People barely register this stuff. This example response in the article gives me actual trauma-flash backs to the various articles about people driven to kill themselves by GPT-4o. Its the exact same sentence structure. GPT-5.1 is going to kill more people.
• mvdtnz 1y ago
  Big things happening over at /r/myboyfriendisai
• cpill 1y ago
  Their decisions are based on data and so sycophantic must be what people want. That is the cold, hard reality. When I look at modern culture: more likes and subscribes, money solves all problems, being physically attractive is more important than personality, genocide for real-estate goes unchecked (apart from the angry tweets), freedom of speech is a political football. Are you really surprised? I can think of no harsher indictment of our times.