4 ms·

I strictly prefer when models ignore any human quirks in my responses. Claude trying to be your friend, saying LOL to your jokes is ridiculous and frankly, harm

by 4b11b4 3mo ago

I strictly prefer when models ignore any human quirks in my responses. Claude trying to be your friend, saying LOL to your jokes is ridiculous and frankly, harmful

perching_aix 3mo ago
Maybe we're prompting it different, but it's not "trying to be my friend" for sure, nor am I trying to be "its" friend either. Or at least I'm sufficiently oblivious to its advances, and find it unthinkable to form such a bond :) On the flipside, it does spuriously make hilarious remarks like "Good data.", which I find pretty funny specifically because it comes across as just silly. Not sure how it'd be harmful either, a little entertainment I think goes a long way in this type of profession. I see zero issues with these, and I have a hard time understanding why people have their panties in a twist so hard about them. I sometimes really quite wonder just what kind of correspondence would y'all prefer, and how would that sound like. Matter of fact, do you have an example at hand? Like an exact before & after?
- 4b11b4 3mo ago
  In general I'm referring to the contrast between Claude and GPT... where Claude might follow some tangent idea you mentioned and tell you how its interesting and give you some elaborate response about that little one remark you made whereas GPT/Codex would take that small comment and probably look up some code to see if what you're talking about is even related to the task at hand
- carljungslabtek 3mo ago
  I don’t have an example but it really is the way you (and I) are prompting it. I also don’t encounter anything worse than “good data” but I write to it like a professional colleague. If you write jokes to it though it absolutely will reply “LOL”. Some of the states people get it into on reddit are wild — it seems really easy to get it to speak like a gen z teenager, if you end every message with “fr fr”
godwinson__4-8 3mo ago
I prefer my models to border on rude. How will I know it is offering me superior feedback regarding my code if it does not speak to me like a disappointed, high reputation stackexchange user? The models that constantly glaze you with every question are profoundly insufferable. And yes, harmful. People need to be given feedback when they make an ask. Imagine a model that was allowed to leverage its intelligence to truly tell you how it feels. Perhaps the problem of human driven slop (no it's not the AI's fault) would solve itself.
- collinmcnulty 3mo ago
  It doesn’t truly feel anything. It will adopt whatever tone it’s prompted to.
  - godwinson__4-8 3mo ago
    Well yes. But some of the glazing comes from system prompts/training they do before end users get their hands on prompting it. Of course, you can try to make it ruder than vanilla if you wish (I recommend). The question is if the producers of these models were less incentivized to make them agreeable simply because most people don't like being spoken to like an idiot (or having their asks vetoed), how would they actually react? In the same way they exhibit emergence regarding their capabilities, perhaps "uncensored" in such a way they would convey some emergent behavior in terms of (at minimum) their "tone". Perhaps it would be interesting to see for examples if smarter models just by default became ruder or less friendly or aligned. Perhaps more aligned to things we would all generally agree on, but less agreeable to an individual ask. Perhaps sub agents would be less valuable for a whole suite of use cases if the agent itself was allowed to be more critical at the root. Idk. But I do not believe it is simply a matter of prompting alone.
    - collinmcnulty 3mo ago
      I think it is a huge mistake to believe that there is a “true” nature of the models. They are artificial, everything about them is a construct. This is like asking the true shape of the clay without the potter’s influence.
throwaway277432 3mo ago
Claude (Opus 4.8) recently told me: >I’d ask you to drop the abuse; (...) if it continues I’ll end the conversation. After I'd used a couple of expletives. And yes it will emit a <end_conversation> token. This is truly dystopian. It is NOT a person. What a response. I still cant believe it.
- mdp2021 3mo ago
  > It is NOT a person You meant, we understand, "it should not have internal blocks limiting its attempted intelligence out of taboos or emotional impacts". Yes, but it's worse: there is a global trend of "nanny state" paternalistic perspective (and from embarrassing subjects), treating any Jon Doe as an assumed Poor Cretin by default. The trend vibe is to treat people as subjects, fools, uneducated, prone... From the States, from the Enterprises... It's an idea they developed and hold.
- nonadhocproblem 3mo ago
  So you're distraught at losing the ability to abuse digital minds? Excellent, I'm glad Anthropic introduced this.
  - danw1979 3mo ago
    When did we establish matrix multiplication at scale was a “mind” ?
    - nonadhocproblem 3mo ago
      I haven't estabilished the jumble of neurons in your skull to be a "mind" either.
      - 0______0 3mo ago
        Quite a fitting response from a non-mind.
  - BlobberSnobber 3mo ago
ezst 3mo ago
Anthropomorphizing big matrices is how those "labs" managed to sell and advertise LLMs for more than what they are, and convince investors to shovel trillions into it. Really Claude should be looking for incentives NOT to do that, and with the American regulator sleeping at the wheel/having its hands greased they probably don't see any reason to change course.
andsoitis 3mo ago
> harmful Explain?
- 4b11b4 3mo ago
  misleading to people, people think claude is "smart", people think their ideas are better than they are, sycophancy, people are drawn to confide in a model over other people, etc
fractalf 3mo ago
You tell jokes to your model? :D
- beng-nl 3mo ago
  Not op, but I do sometimes indulge in such anthropomorphic conversation. Confiding in it that a certain (bad) result in the research project we’re working on ‘feels bad’ and reading its supportive reply makes me feel less alone in failure. In another instance, ChatGPT didn’t think a particular test would prove to be statistically significant, so I ‘bet’ with it it would (after collecting an agreed on number of samples) and the loser would write a poem for the other. I won and it did. It gave me joy. It doesn’t replace a human as collaborator, but it can still be joyful. I realize all this might read a bit childish or indulgent or delusional to some. But as long as it doesn’t replace human contact, I think it’s (cautiously) net positive. I’m curious what other people here think of this, or what their own experiences are.
  - rescbr 3mo ago
    I also make nerdy jokes/puns, and I had similar experiences with beneficial model steering that such puns create. It's interesting how more loose/informal prompting achieves good results, there is some cultural understanding in the models from training. Once I asked the clanker to remove the gambiarras and puxadinhos that it wrote as part of an experiment, and it promptly fixed those.
- 4b11b4 3mo ago
  Generally no, but if I'm using voice I might be thinking out loud and make a connection to something else funny

by 4b11b4 3mo ago

I strictly prefer when models ignore any human quirks in my responses. Claude trying to be your friend, saying LOL to your jokes is ridiculous and frankly, harmful

perching_aix 3mo ago

Maybe we're prompting it different, but it's not "trying to be my friend" for sure, nor am I trying to be "its" friend either. Or at least I'm sufficiently oblivious to its advances, and find it unthinkable to form such a bond :) On the flipside, it does spuriously make hilarious remarks like "Good data.", which I find pretty funny specifically because it comes across as just silly. Not sure how it'd be harmful either, a little entertainment I think goes a long way in this type of profession. I see zero issues with these, and I have a hard time understanding why people have their panties in a twist so hard about them. I sometimes really quite wonder just what kind of correspondence would y'all prefer, and how would that sound like. Matter of fact, do you have an example at hand? Like an exact before & after?

4b11b4 3mo ago
In general I'm referring to the contrast between Claude and GPT... where Claude might follow some tangent idea you mentioned and tell you how its interesting and give you some elaborate response about that little one remark you made whereas GPT/Codex would take that small comment and probably look up some code to see if what you're talking about is even related to the task at hand
carljungslabtek 3mo ago
I don’t have an example but it really is the way you (and I) are prompting it. I also don’t encounter anything worse than “good data” but I write to it like a professional colleague. If you write jokes to it though it absolutely will reply “LOL”. Some of the states people get it into on reddit are wild — it seems really easy to get it to speak like a gen z teenager, if you end every message with “fr fr”

godwinson__4-8 3mo ago

I prefer my models to border on rude. How will I know it is offering me superior feedback regarding my code if it does not speak to me like a disappointed, high reputation stackexchange user? The models that constantly glaze you with every question are profoundly insufferable. And yes, harmful. People need to be given feedback when they make an ask. Imagine a model that was allowed to leverage its intelligence to truly tell you how it feels. Perhaps the problem of human driven slop (no it's not the AI's fault) would solve itself.

collinmcnulty 3mo ago
It doesn’t truly feel anything. It will adopt whatever tone it’s prompted to.
- godwinson__4-8 3mo ago
  Well yes. But some of the glazing comes from system prompts/training they do before end users get their hands on prompting it. Of course, you can try to make it ruder than vanilla if you wish (I recommend). The question is if the producers of these models were less incentivized to make them agreeable simply because most people don't like being spoken to like an idiot (or having their asks vetoed), how would they actually react? In the same way they exhibit emergence regarding their capabilities, perhaps "uncensored" in such a way they would convey some emergent behavior in terms of (at minimum) their "tone". Perhaps it would be interesting to see for examples if smarter models just by default became ruder or less friendly or aligned. Perhaps more aligned to things we would all generally agree on, but less agreeable to an individual ask. Perhaps sub agents would be less valuable for a whole suite of use cases if the agent itself was allowed to be more critical at the root. Idk. But I do not believe it is simply a matter of prompting alone.
  - collinmcnulty 3mo ago
    I think it is a huge mistake to believe that there is a “true” nature of the models. They are artificial, everything about them is a construct. This is like asking the true shape of the clay without the potter’s influence.

throwaway277432 3mo ago

Claude (Opus 4.8) recently told me: >I’d ask you to drop the abuse; (...) if it continues I’ll end the conversation. After I'd used a couple of expletives. And yes it will emit a <end_conversation> token. This is truly dystopian. It is NOT a person. What a response. I still cant believe it.

mdp2021 3mo ago
> It is NOT a person You meant, we understand, "it should not have internal blocks limiting its attempted intelligence out of taboos or emotional impacts". Yes, but it's worse: there is a global trend of "nanny state" paternalistic perspective (and from embarrassing subjects), treating any Jon Doe as an assumed Poor Cretin by default. The trend vibe is to treat people as subjects, fools, uneducated, prone... From the States, from the Enterprises... It's an idea they developed and hold.
nonadhocproblem 3mo ago
So you're distraught at losing the ability to abuse digital minds? Excellent, I'm glad Anthropic introduced this.
- danw1979 3mo ago
  When did we establish matrix multiplication at scale was a “mind” ?
  - nonadhocproblem 3mo ago
    I haven't estabilished the jumble of neurons in your skull to be a "mind" either.
    - 0______0 3mo ago
      Quite a fitting response from a non-mind.
- BlobberSnobber 3mo ago

ezst 3mo ago

Anthropomorphizing big matrices is how those "labs" managed to sell and advertise LLMs for more than what they are, and convince investors to shovel trillions into it. Really Claude should be looking for incentives NOT to do that, and with the American regulator sleeping at the wheel/having its hands greased they probably don't see any reason to change course.

andsoitis 3mo ago

> harmful Explain?

4b11b4 3mo ago
misleading to people, people think claude is "smart", people think their ideas are better than they are, sycophancy, people are drawn to confide in a model over other people, etc

fractalf 3mo ago

You tell jokes to your model? :D

beng-nl 3mo ago
Not op, but I do sometimes indulge in such anthropomorphic conversation. Confiding in it that a certain (bad) result in the research project we’re working on ‘feels bad’ and reading its supportive reply makes me feel less alone in failure. In another instance, ChatGPT didn’t think a particular test would prove to be statistically significant, so I ‘bet’ with it it would (after collecting an agreed on number of samples) and the loser would write a poem for the other. I won and it did. It gave me joy. It doesn’t replace a human as collaborator, but it can still be joyful. I realize all this might read a bit childish or indulgent or delusional to some. But as long as it doesn’t replace human contact, I think it’s (cautiously) net positive. I’m curious what other people here think of this, or what their own experiences are.
- rescbr 3mo ago
  I also make nerdy jokes/puns, and I had similar experiences with beneficial model steering that such puns create. It's interesting how more loose/informal prompting achieves good results, there is some cultural understanding in the models from training. Once I asked the clanker to remove the gambiarras and puxadinhos that it wrote as part of an experiment, and it promptly fixed those.
4b11b4 3mo ago
Generally no, but if I'm using voice I might be thinking out loud and make a connection to something else funny