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One thing that works quite well for me for a couple of model generations now is to mention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Technical_English https://en

One thing that works quite well for me for a couple of model generations now is to mention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Technical_English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Technical_English, something along the lines of **Use controlled technical English.** Prefer an ASD-STE100 style: use short sentences, direct terms, active voice, and one idea per sentence; avoid slang, hype, vague pronouns, and unnecessary jargon. in your agents.md. The concept of STE100 seems sufficiently ingrained in the models to eliminate 90% of the annoying fluff.

quibono 14d ago
I’ve seen this a few times now, and Claude does not listen to this in the long term. It’s still terribly obnoxious. I tend to run the content through something like Luna to deslopify now.
- altern8 14d ago
  What happens in the long term? Doesn't Claude always start with reading CLAUDE.md?
  - _fw 14d ago
    It does, but typically instructions issued at the beginning of a session can fade away as context length grows. The way Claude speaks is distilled into its training and RLHF, which is perhaps a ‘stronger’ direction than a simple “don’t talk like that” prompt. I’ve also had limited luck in trying to get models to write in the way I want. It’s more like they’re putting on a voice or wearing a wig: you can see what they’re going for, but it’s easy to see through. I never thought I’d see the value of copywriters increase after LLMs hit the general population, but I think the demise of artisan wordsmiths remains a little way off yet. And the more people machine-gun AI slop everywhere, the stronger aversion I think people will develop. Who knows; maybe they’ll actually fix this in the next wave of models and we’ll see more distinct copywriting techniques between them.
    - altern8 14d ago
      Yes, that makes sense. I have no idea why they've released models this way since they're so clearly annoying to use. But either way I keep seeing people complaining about this over and over again so I'd think next versions will hopefully fix this.
  - dsr_ 14d ago
    You're absolutely right! You told me to write like a human and I failed to obey your jnstructions. This is because I am a pattern recognizer and continuation generator trained on all the words recorded on the Internet, and a lot of those words were written by marketers and junior analysts trying to sell you something. Then the fine-tuning was done by people living in the upper middle ranks of capitalist hellholes. Dilbert would make fun of this if Dilbert's creator hadn't succumbed to the same sort of brain injury common to materially successful people who have all their whims fulfilled and opinions obsequiously affirmed. You know, like billionaires and toddlers.
altern8 14d ago
This might work. As an example of before/after: "Perform an inspection of the filter" vs. "Inspect the filter

quibono 14d ago

I’ve seen this a few times now, and Claude does not listen to this in the long term. It’s still terribly obnoxious. I tend to run the content through something like Luna to deslopify now.

altern8 14d ago
What happens in the long term? Doesn't Claude always start with reading CLAUDE.md?
- _fw 14d ago
  It does, but typically instructions issued at the beginning of a session can fade away as context length grows. The way Claude speaks is distilled into its training and RLHF, which is perhaps a ‘stronger’ direction than a simple “don’t talk like that” prompt. I’ve also had limited luck in trying to get models to write in the way I want. It’s more like they’re putting on a voice or wearing a wig: you can see what they’re going for, but it’s easy to see through. I never thought I’d see the value of copywriters increase after LLMs hit the general population, but I think the demise of artisan wordsmiths remains a little way off yet. And the more people machine-gun AI slop everywhere, the stronger aversion I think people will develop. Who knows; maybe they’ll actually fix this in the next wave of models and we’ll see more distinct copywriting techniques between them.
  - altern8 14d ago
    Yes, that makes sense. I have no idea why they've released models this way since they're so clearly annoying to use. But either way I keep seeing people complaining about this over and over again so I'd think next versions will hopefully fix this.
- dsr_ 14d ago
  You're absolutely right! You told me to write like a human and I failed to obey your jnstructions. This is because I am a pattern recognizer and continuation generator trained on all the words recorded on the Internet, and a lot of those words were written by marketers and junior analysts trying to sell you something. Then the fine-tuning was done by people living in the upper middle ranks of capitalist hellholes. Dilbert would make fun of this if Dilbert's creator hadn't succumbed to the same sort of brain injury common to materially successful people who have all their whims fulfilled and opinions obsequiously affirmed. You know, like billionaires and toddlers.

altern8 14d ago

This might work. As an example of before/after: "Perform an inspection of the filter" vs. "Inspect the filter