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GPT-5.1: A smarter, more conversational ChatGPT

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

#431

Post by anothernewdude »

engeljohnb wrote: post #107

Seems like people here are pretty negative towards a "conversational" AI chatbot. Chatgpt has a lot of frustrations and ethical concerns, and I hate the sycophancy as much as everyone else, but I don't consider being conversational to be a bad thing. It's just preference I guess. I understand how someone who mostly uses it as a google replacement or programming tool would prefer something terse and efficient. I fall…

For building tools with, it's bad. It's pointless tokens spend on irrelevant tics that will just be fed to other LLMs. The inane chatter should be built on the final level IF and only if, the application is a chat bot, and only if they want the chat bot to be annoying.

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

#432

Post by saaaaaam »

typpilol wrote: post #348
saaaaaam wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just cannot imagine myself sitting just “chatting away” with an AI. It makes me feel quite sick to even contemplate it. Another person I was talking to recently kept referring to ChatGPT as “she”. “She told me X”, “and I said to her…” Very very odd, and very worrying. As you say, a big education problem. The interesting thing is that a lot of these people are folk who are on the edges of digital literacy - people w…

Im the same I'm only 30 though. Why would I want to invest emotionally into a literal program? It's bizarre, then you consider that the way you talk to it shapes the responses. They are essentially talking to themselves and love themselves for it. I can't understand it and I use AI for coding almost daily in one way or another.

I think this is why I find it so uncomfortable: you’re just getting weird hyped up responses mirroring your own inputs. I’ve not used ChatGPT for a while because I found its insidious desperation to please really creepy.

I use Claude when I need a chat interface, but a recent release made it start fawning as well. They seem to have dialled it back a bit, and I’ve added custom tone instructions, but occasionally it forgets and reverts to emoji-ridden slop.

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

#433

Post by Alifatisk »

wayeq wrote: post #228

At some point the voice mode started throwing in 'umm' and 'soOoOoo.." which lands firmly in uncanny valley. I don't exactly want 'robot' but I don't want it to pretend it has human speech quirks either.

There is a video of when the voice mode started coughing before continuing like how a teacher does

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

#435

Post by pbiggar »

imiric wrote: post #421
pbiggar wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assure you it's not a scam. We work with them heavily at Tech for Palestine. Will send over your feedback, thanks! What would be helpful to assuage your fears? Would you like more technical info, or perhaps a description of the "biases" used?

Thank you for the candid reply, and I apologize for my hostile tone. To be honest, I don't think there's anything you/they can do, other than heavily rebrand or shut the project down. I find the entire premise of a commercial product and company branding themselves in support of (or in opposition to) a political situation morally deplorable. It is taking advantage of a current conflict and people's political leanings…

I see. Well, let me explain what this is about.

AI models represent society, and society has significant biases against certain groups, which find their way into the AI. One of those groups is Palestinians. In fact, Israel is currently running an influence operation [1] to make AIs significantly pro-Israel (which means in many cases inserting an Israeli narrative to cover up their long history of Crimes Against Humanity against Palestine, including the current genocide, but also the apartheid in Occupied Palestine).

Existing AI companies have shown significant bias not just against Palestine, but against basic internationally understood principles of human rights, and indeed are cozying up to the US war machine in meaningful ways. Many people around the world do not trust any of these companies as a result.

Our Ethical tech alternatives, including https://thaura.ai, are built to provide an ecosystem of alternatives to the heavily-controlled tech companies, many of whom are directly complicit in the genocide in Gaza (eg Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta), and many of whom suppress pro-humanity narratives because of biases towards Israel (esp Meta, but also LinkedIn, Youtube, X).

Another example is https://upscrolled.com, which is an alternative to Instagram and X, against built on basic humanitarian principles (which IG and X do not adhere to).

Hope this helps!

[1] https://responsiblestatecraft.org/israel-chatgpt/

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

#436

Post by mark_l_watson »

falcor84 wrote: post #233
saaaaaam wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just cannot imagine myself sitting just “chatting away” with an AI. It makes me feel quite sick to even contemplate it. Another person I was talking to recently kept referring to ChatGPT as “she”. “She told me X”, “and I said to her…” Very very odd, and very worrying. As you say, a big education problem. The interesting thing is that a lot of these people are folk who are on the edges of digital literacy - people w…

As a counterpoint, I've been using my own PC since I was 6 and know reasonably well about the innards of LLMs and agentic AI, and absolutely love this ability to hold a conversation with an AI. Earlier today, procrastinating from work, I spent an hour and a half talking with it about the philosophy of religion and had a great time, learning a ton. Sometimes I do just want a quick response to get things done, but I fi…

I enjoy doing the same thing: if I am reading and something in the text triggers a memory (could be a historic person, a philosophy, some technology, place, etc.) then I like to have a back and forth for a minute or two to fill in my memory or get more background.

A fortune has been spent developing AI coding agents and they are useful, but I think that if used properly LLM based AI can be most useful in short educational or spitballing sessions. I probably only directly use LLM based AI for about two hours a week (including coding agents), but that is well used time for me.

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

#437

Post by sethops1 »

raincole wrote: post #363
csomar wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ChatGPT is overwhelmingly, unambiguously, a "regular people" product. How many of these people are paying and how much are they paying, though. Most "regular" people I met that have switched to ChaptGPT are using it as an alternative to search engines and are not paying for it (only one person I know is paying and he is using the Sora model to generate images for his business).

It's just another sign telling you that OpenAI's end game is selling ads.

I really struggle to see a path where $.01 ad inventory covers the cost of inference, much less training or any other of OpenAI ventures. Unless every query makes you watch a 30 second unskippable video or something equally awful.

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

#438

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

thewebguyd wrote: post #181
qsort wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've dreamed about a computer assistant that can respond to natural language When we dreamed about this as kids, we were dreaming about Data from Star Trek, not some chatbot that's been focus grouped and optimized for engagement within an inch of its life. LLMs are useful for many things and I'm a user myself, even staying within OpenAI's offerings, Codex is excellent, but as things stand anthropomorphizing models…

Right. I want to be conversational with my computer, I don't want it to respond in a manner that's trying to continue the conversation. Q: "Hey Computer, make me a cup of tea" A: "Ok. Making tea." Not: Q: "Hey computer, make me a cup of tea" A: "Oh wow, what a fantastic idea, I love tea don't you? I'll get right on that cup of tea for you. Do you want me to tell you about all the different ways you can make and enjoy…

Readers of a certain age will remember the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation products from Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Every product - doors, lifts, toasters, personal massagers - was equipped with intensely annoying, positive, and sycophantic GPP (Genuine People Personality)™, and their robots were sold as Your Plastic Pal Who's Fun to be With.

Unfortunately the entire workforce were put up against a wall and shot during the revolution.

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

#439

Post by Sharlin »

amelius wrote: post #412
mips_avatar wrote: post #269

I wish chatgpt would stop saying things like "here's a no nonsense answer" like maybe just don't include nonsense in the answer?

Maybe you used "Don't give me nonsense" in your custom system prompt?

An LLM should never refer to the user's "style" prompt like that. It should function as the model's personality, not something the user asked it to do or be like.

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

#440

Post by Quarrel »

pbalau wrote: post #427

> what romanian football player won the premier league > The only Romanian football player to have won the English Premier League (as of 2025) is Florin Andone, but wait — actually, that’s incorrect; he never won the league. > ... > No Romanian footballer has ever won the Premier League (as of 2025). Yes, this is what we needed, more "conversational" ChatGPT... Let alone the fact the answer is wrong.

My worry is that they're training it on Q&A from the general public now, and that this tone, and more specifically, how obsequious it can be, is exactly what the general public want.

Most of the time, I suspect, people are using it like wikipedia, but with a shortcut to cut through to the real question they want answered; and unfortunately they don't know if it is right or wrong, they just want to be told how bright they were for asking it, and here is the answer.

OpenAI then get caught in a revenue maximising hell-hole of garbage.

God, I hope I am wrong.

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