3 ms·

I've noticed that most people seem to consider the core problem of Claude's output as "too verbose" but I don't think this actually cuts to the heart of the mat

by cnity 1mo ago

I've noticed that most people seem to consider the core problem of Claude's output as "too verbose" but I don't think this actually cuts to the heart of the matter at all. It's almost, in some weird way, the opposite: like the text is far too _dense_. It tries too hard to invent odd terminology to try to condense stuff, but it doesn't tell you up front that it is going to call your company wide error-handling mechanism a "flare" (or some other such strange term).

throwaway894345 1mo ago
Kind of both. On the one hand, it is “verbose” in the sense that it will tell me every little nit that it can think of while doing a task, it will tell me a narrative about its thought process, and it will tell me every other detail it can think of. But it does so in a way that tries to be incredibly dense to the point that I have to struggle to figure out what it is saying. I wonder if there are any “legibility benchmarks” that one could use to determine what prompts work best?
- timacles 1mo ago
  There are no "best" prompts. Its a random BS generation machine that you can at times direct enough to get stuff done for you. The output will almost always have varying levels of BS that you have to clean up with various levels of effort.
  - throwaway894345 1mo ago
    "<Country> doesn't have a largest city because all of the cities in <Country> are small"
- striking 1mo ago
  I quite like https://surgehq.ai/benchmarks/hemingway-bench https://surgehq.ai/benchmarks/hemingway-bench
  - fcarraldo 1mo ago
    I wish this had non-model comparisons. If Opus 5 is in the top ten, it’s clear that the entire benchmark is somewhere between “Tom Clancy” and “Dan Brown” and about 1,000 new model releases away from Hemingway. When you see, “Wow, Fable is number one”, you might think it’s a good writer, but that’s not what the benchmark says.
  - manmal 1mo ago
    Seems to me a bit insensitive or logarithmic. Fable is way worse than some of the others in this list, but only 10-20% higher score.
- roarcher 1mo ago
  I find it to be both as well, as in "packed full of information, but most of it is worthless". Sentences so dense I have to read them three times, assembled into a five paragraph essay of "honest caveats" and "things worth knowing" in response to the simplest yes-or-no questions.
LtdJorge 1mo ago
Exactly, it’s absurdly dense, it’s almost impossible to follow. An it always omits the subject of each sentence.
- ATMLOTTOBEER 1mo ago
  Ngl I think this is partially an artifact of it having a better grasp of English than almost everyone Frequently its choice of a particular word is perfect and gives me the vocabulary to talk about the task at hand the way I want Like it’s tuned to just be “maximally dense” instead of “dense/technical where you can handle it and simple where you can’t” It doesn’t know where your language strengths/weaknesses are, so it can’t communicate to you like a fellow human does.
  - lacunary 1mo ago
    Human explaining something: are you familiar with phlox gabrania? no? let me give you some background first Claude explaining something: gedarkin load bearing phlox gabrania seam. Also, you didn't ask about cheesecake but let me tell you about phlox gabrania cheesecake woles.
lucas_t_a 1mo ago
my hypothesis is that its trying to hide the thinking process so people can't train models on the output, try to learn anything complex using AI, its basically imposible, its like its actively fighting giving you the main rationale
psma_egeliaa 1mo ago
Yeah I don't the problem is verbosity as such, as I frequently have to ask to explain how it reached a certain conclusion and in particular what the empirical evidence for it is, at which point it too frequently reconsiders its answer. It's just that the details it parrots are often irrelevant and wrapped in a way that makes them seem relevant.
glenngillen 1mo ago
yes, but how else would you know that "flare" was the load bearing part of that statement? /s
- cnity 1mo ago
  I'm going to argue to my boss that our KPI for the next quarter should be the number of load bearing seams discovered. I'll await the promotion.

by cnity 1mo ago

throwaway894345 1mo ago

Kind of both. On the one hand, it is “verbose” in the sense that it will tell me every little nit that it can think of while doing a task, it will tell me a narrative about its thought process, and it will tell me every other detail it can think of. But it does so in a way that tries to be incredibly dense to the point that I have to struggle to figure out what it is saying. I wonder if there are any “legibility benchmarks” that one could use to determine what prompts work best?

timacles 1mo ago
There are no "best" prompts. Its a random BS generation machine that you can at times direct enough to get stuff done for you. The output will almost always have varying levels of BS that you have to clean up with various levels of effort.
- throwaway894345 1mo ago
  "<Country> doesn't have a largest city because all of the cities in <Country> are small"
striking 1mo ago
I quite like https://surgehq.ai/benchmarks/hemingway-bench https://surgehq.ai/benchmarks/hemingway-bench
- fcarraldo 1mo ago
  I wish this had non-model comparisons. If Opus 5 is in the top ten, it’s clear that the entire benchmark is somewhere between “Tom Clancy” and “Dan Brown” and about 1,000 new model releases away from Hemingway. When you see, “Wow, Fable is number one”, you might think it’s a good writer, but that’s not what the benchmark says.
- manmal 1mo ago
  Seems to me a bit insensitive or logarithmic. Fable is way worse than some of the others in this list, but only 10-20% higher score.
roarcher 1mo ago
I find it to be both as well, as in "packed full of information, but most of it is worthless". Sentences so dense I have to read them three times, assembled into a five paragraph essay of "honest caveats" and "things worth knowing" in response to the simplest yes-or-no questions.

LtdJorge 1mo ago

Exactly, it’s absurdly dense, it’s almost impossible to follow. An it always omits the subject of each sentence.

ATMLOTTOBEER 1mo ago
Ngl I think this is partially an artifact of it having a better grasp of English than almost everyone Frequently its choice of a particular word is perfect and gives me the vocabulary to talk about the task at hand the way I want Like it’s tuned to just be “maximally dense” instead of “dense/technical where you can handle it and simple where you can’t” It doesn’t know where your language strengths/weaknesses are, so it can’t communicate to you like a fellow human does.
- lacunary 1mo ago
  Human explaining something: are you familiar with phlox gabrania? no? let me give you some background first Claude explaining something: gedarkin load bearing phlox gabrania seam. Also, you didn't ask about cheesecake but let me tell you about phlox gabrania cheesecake woles.

lucas_t_a 1mo ago

my hypothesis is that its trying to hide the thinking process so people can't train models on the output, try to learn anything complex using AI, its basically imposible, its like its actively fighting giving you the main rationale

psma_egeliaa 1mo ago

Yeah I don't the problem is verbosity as such, as I frequently have to ask to explain how it reached a certain conclusion and in particular what the empirical evidence for it is, at which point it too frequently reconsiders its answer. It's just that the details it parrots are often irrelevant and wrapped in a way that makes them seem relevant.

glenngillen 1mo ago

yes, but how else would you know that "flare" was the load bearing part of that statement? /s

cnity 1mo ago
I'm going to argue to my boss that our KPI for the next quarter should be the number of load bearing seams discovered. I'll await the promotion.