3 ms·

Why would those things make you interact with it differently? I’ve always believed that being kind and conscientious is beneficial to ourselves. I’m certainly n

by brookst 2mo ago

Why would those things make you interact with it differently? I’ve always believed that being kind and conscientious is beneficial to ourselves. I’m certainly not interested in using LLMs to practice skipping those behaviors myself.

butlike 2mo ago
Should I thank my car for turning on when I press the button (or turn the key in the ignition)? The prose is just the best interface for humans to interact with the statistical model. Terseness doesn't offend the statistical model, but giving platitudes may color its output
- brookst 2mo ago
  Partly fair, though I’d argue I think less of people who treat their car badly to express their own bad mood. But we also interact with cars differently than LLMs. The way I’m typing a note to you, here, is much more similar to interaction with LLMs than it is to starting a car. So to the extent we practice our behaviors, I think there’s less moral hazard in failing to thank the car for starting than there is in being rude to LLMs. Not that either harms others, my argument is about impact to our selves.
  - indoordin0saur 2mo ago
    > Partly fair, though I’d argue I think less of people who treat their car badly to express their own bad mood. These people are also anthropomorphizing, just in a negative way. Yelling at your car for malfunctioning as if your harsh tone will shame it into operating better next time.
- indoordin0saur 2mo ago
  I apologized profusely to my laundry machine for the especially smelly clothes I loaded after my camping trip.
- sebastiennight 2mo ago
  > Terseness doesn't offend the statistical model, but giving platitudes may color its output My understanding of the state of current research is that the impact of tone/politeness on performance is highly model-dependent, and language dependent as well. See `No Universal Courtesy` (April 2026) https://arxiv.org/html/2604.16275v1 https://arxiv.org/html/2604.16275v1 While polite prompts enhance the average response quality by upto 11% and impolite tones worsen it, these effects are neither consistent nor universal across languages and models. English is best served by courtesy or direct, Hindi by deferential and indirect and Spanish by assertive. Among the models, Llama is the most tone-sensitive (11.5% range), but GPT is more robust to adversarial tone. Or `Mind Your Tone` (Oct 2025) https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.04950 https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.04950 Contrary to expectations, impolite prompts consistently outperformed polite ones, with accuracy ranging from 80.8% for Very Polite prompts to 84.8% for Very Rude prompts. I think the best conclusion is to interact in a way that is efficient for you, gives you the level of results you're looking for, and mostly importantly does not progressively degrade your relationship and interactions with other humans. Hence the typical advice to just default to "corporate polite".
- lubujackson 2mo ago
  Maybe you should? It would be less weird than you think. There is the Japanese custom of saying "Itadakimasu" before eating - not thanking the chef, but thanking the food itself. Mr. Rogers said that that "graceful receiving is the best gift you can give someone" It is counterintuitive idea, but deeply empathetic. Training yourself to "gracefully receive," even by thanking your car for starting, sound like a habit that could lead you to a richer, calmer life.
- Smaug123 2mo ago
  Honestly kind of yes, it’s good for the soul! Recently ordinaryabundance.com did the rounds; the LessWrong-o-sphere has Landsailor (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RCIdOp5GHg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RCIdOp5GHg) as part of its canon; loads of things in that vein. We live in a mighty civilisation which has fought impossible battles to produce these artifacts, and even if you don’t assign moral worth to the artifacts, it’s an easy synecdoche for being grateful to the civilisation and the ongoing thankless effort to maintain it.

by brookst 2mo ago

butlike 2mo ago

Should I thank my car for turning on when I press the button (or turn the key in the ignition)? The prose is just the best interface for humans to interact with the statistical model. Terseness doesn't offend the statistical model, but giving platitudes may color its output

brookst 2mo ago
Partly fair, though I’d argue I think less of people who treat their car badly to express their own bad mood. But we also interact with cars differently than LLMs. The way I’m typing a note to you, here, is much more similar to interaction with LLMs than it is to starting a car. So to the extent we practice our behaviors, I think there’s less moral hazard in failing to thank the car for starting than there is in being rude to LLMs. Not that either harms others, my argument is about impact to our selves.
- indoordin0saur 2mo ago
  > Partly fair, though I’d argue I think less of people who treat their car badly to express their own bad mood. These people are also anthropomorphizing, just in a negative way. Yelling at your car for malfunctioning as if your harsh tone will shame it into operating better next time.
indoordin0saur 2mo ago
I apologized profusely to my laundry machine for the especially smelly clothes I loaded after my camping trip.
sebastiennight 2mo ago
> Terseness doesn't offend the statistical model, but giving platitudes may color its output My understanding of the state of current research is that the impact of tone/politeness on performance is highly model-dependent, and language dependent as well. See `No Universal Courtesy` (April 2026) https://arxiv.org/html/2604.16275v1 https://arxiv.org/html/2604.16275v1 While polite prompts enhance the average response quality by upto 11% and impolite tones worsen it, these effects are neither consistent nor universal across languages and models. English is best served by courtesy or direct, Hindi by deferential and indirect and Spanish by assertive. Among the models, Llama is the most tone-sensitive (11.5% range), but GPT is more robust to adversarial tone. Or `Mind Your Tone` (Oct 2025) https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.04950 https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.04950 Contrary to expectations, impolite prompts consistently outperformed polite ones, with accuracy ranging from 80.8% for Very Polite prompts to 84.8% for Very Rude prompts. I think the best conclusion is to interact in a way that is efficient for you, gives you the level of results you're looking for, and mostly importantly does not progressively degrade your relationship and interactions with other humans. Hence the typical advice to just default to "corporate polite".
lubujackson 2mo ago
Maybe you should? It would be less weird than you think. There is the Japanese custom of saying "Itadakimasu" before eating - not thanking the chef, but thanking the food itself. Mr. Rogers said that that "graceful receiving is the best gift you can give someone" It is counterintuitive idea, but deeply empathetic. Training yourself to "gracefully receive," even by thanking your car for starting, sound like a habit that could lead you to a richer, calmer life.
Smaug123 2mo ago
Honestly kind of yes, it’s good for the soul! Recently ordinaryabundance.com did the rounds; the LessWrong-o-sphere has Landsailor (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RCIdOp5GHg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RCIdOp5GHg) as part of its canon; loads of things in that vein. We live in a mighty civilisation which has fought impossible battles to produce these artifacts, and even if you don’t assign moral worth to the artifacts, it’s an easy synecdoche for being grateful to the civilisation and the ongoing thankless effort to maintain it.