Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

GPT-5.1: A smarter, more conversational ChatGPT

openai.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 766 posts

Re: GPT-5.1: A smarter, more conversational ChatGPT

#381

Post by DonaldPShimoda »

buu700 wrote: post #285
daveguy wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, I'm intrigued. How in the fuck could the "nanny state" cause people to abuse heroin? Is there a reason other than "just cause it's my ideology"?

I don't know if this is what the parent commenter was getting at, but the existence of multi-billion-dollar drug cartels in Mexico is an empirical failure of US policy. Prohibition didn't work a century ago and it doesn't work now. All the War on Drugs has accomplished is granting an extremely lucrative oligopoly to violent criminals. If someone is going to do heroin, ideally they'd get it from a corporation that fol…

I'm not sure which parent comment you're referring to, but what you're saying aligns with my point a couple levels up: reasonable regulation of the companies building these tools is a way to mitigate harm without directly encroaching on people's individual freedoms or dignities, but regulation is necessary to help people. Without regulation, corporations will seek to maximize profit to whatever degree is possible, even if it means causing direct harm to people along the way.

Re: GPT-5.1: A smarter, more conversational ChatGPT

#382

Post by p0w3n3d »

gandalfthepink wrote: post #301

It is truly stupid that they are trying to make it more human-like. They should have added a radio button to turn off these sort of customizations because it doesn't help some of us. Just pisses me off. It is supposed to be an answering machine, not some emotional support system.

I've listened to the chatgpt voice recently (which I didn't use before), and my conclusion is it is really calm and trustable sort of voice. I wonder how many people are getting deceived by this. Especially when lonely. This means monies for the firm, but also means lives broken for those people who are vulnerable...

Re: GPT-5.1: A smarter, more conversational ChatGPT

#383

Post by DonaldPShimoda »

bogtog wrote: post #205
simonw wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your proposed solution here? Are you calling for legislation that controls the personality of LLMs made available to the public?

There aren't many major labs, and they each claim to want AI to benefit humanity. They cannot entirely control how others use their APIs, but I would like their mainline chatbots to not be overly sycophantic and generally to not try and foster human-AI friendships. I can't imagine any realistic legislation, but it would be nice if the few labs just did this on their own accord (or were at least shamed more for not do…

Unfortunately, I think a lot of the people at the top of the AI pyramid have a definition of "humanity" that may not exactly align with the definition that us commoners might be thinking of when they say they want AI to "benefit humanity".

I agree that I don't know what regulation would look like, but I think we should at least try to figure it out. I would rather hamper AI development needlessly while we fumble around with too much regulation for a bit and eventually decide it's not worth it than let AI run rampant without any oversight while it causes people to kill themselves or harm others, among plenty of other things.

Re: GPT-5.1: A smarter, more conversational ChatGPT

#384

Post by neilwilson »

halifaxbeard wrote: post #153
angrydev wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Stop fooling people into thinking there’s a human typing on the other side of the screen. LLMs should be incredibly useful productivity tools, not emotional support.

How would you propose we address the therapist shortage then?

Remember that a therapist is really a friend you are paying for.

Then make more friends.

Re: GPT-5.1: A smarter, more conversational ChatGPT

#385

Post by ensocode »

Not sure about > We heard clearly from users that great AI should not only be smart, but also enjoyable to talk to.

Probably HN is not very representative crowd regarding this. As others posted I do not want this as well, as I think computers are for knowledge but maybe that's just thinking inside a bubble

Re: GPT-5.1: A smarter, more conversational ChatGPT

#386

Post by kranke155 »

url00 wrote: post #11

I don't want a more conversational GPT. I want the _exact_ opposite. I want a tool with the upper limit of "conversation" being something like LCARS from Star Trek. This is quite disappointing as a current ChatGPT subscriber.

Gemini is very direct.

Re: GPT-5.1: A smarter, more conversational ChatGPT

#387

Post by sho »

rimmontrieu wrote: post #357
gandalfthepink wrote: post #301

It is truly stupid that they are trying to make it more human-like. They should have added a radio button to turn off these sort of customizations because it doesn't help some of us. Just pisses me off. It is supposed to be an answering machine, not some emotional support system.

They already hit a dead end and cannot innovate any further. Instead of being more accurate and deterministic, tuning the model so it produces more human-like tokens is one of a few tricks left to attract investors money.

None of this is even close to true.

Re: GPT-5.1: A smarter, more conversational ChatGPT

#388

Post by jstummbillig »

Hendrikto wrote: post #337
jstummbillig wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Asking it to clarify costs nothing It costs the most important thing I got

As does avoiding jargon at the cost of clarity, or defining every term for people who already know it.

Probably not as much as people who heavily lean on their tribes lingo want to believe, but yes. I think we would prefer an AI that is fantastic as understanding what we know. If it's not, it costs time either way — which is not great, either way.

Re: GPT-5.1: A smarter, more conversational ChatGPT

#389

Post by jstummbillig »

plufz wrote: post #179
Dilettante_ wrote: post #170

>GPT‑5.1 Thinking’s responses are also clearer, with less jargon and fewer undefined terms Oh yeah that's what I want when asking a technical question! Please talk down to me, call a spade an earth-pokey-stick and don't ever use a phrase or concept I don't know because when I come face-to-face with something I don't know yet I feel deep insecurity and dread instead of seeing an opportunity to learn! But I assume thei…

I have added a ”language-and-tone.md” in my coding agents docs to make them use less unnecessary jargon and filler words. For me this change sounds good, I like my token count low and my agents language short and succinct. I get what you mean, but I think ai text is often overfilled with filler jargon. Example from my file: ### Mistake: Using industry jargon unnecessarily *Bad:* > Leverages containerization technolog…

I need this badly

Re: GPT-5.1: A smarter, more conversational ChatGPT

#390

Post by jstummbillig »

gandalfthepink wrote: post #301

It is truly stupid that they are trying to make it more human-like. They should have added a radio button to turn off these sort of customizations because it doesn't help some of us. Just pisses me off. It is supposed to be an answering machine, not some emotional support system.

How do the personalities work for you?
Post reply on HN