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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

#631

Post by bgilroy26 »

4b11b4 wrote: post #533
hamburgererror wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you ask them then?

I'll respond to this bait in the hopes that it clicks for someone how to _not_ use an LLM.. Asking "them"... your perspective is already warped. It's not your fault, all the text we've previously ever seen is associated with a human being. Language models are mathematical, statistical beasts. The beast generally doesn't do well with open ended questions (known as "zero-shot"). It shines when you give it something to…

I have a lot of fun creating stories with Gemini and Claude. It feels like what Tom Hanks character imagined comic books could be in Big (1988)

I play once or twice a week and it's definitely worth $20/mo to me

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

#632

Post by trustmeimhuman »

dkersten wrote: post #576

I don’t want more conversational, I want more to the point. Less telling me how great my question is, less about being friendly, instead I want more cold, hard, accurate, direct, and factual results. It’s a machine and a tool, not a person and definitely not my friend.

[dead]

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

#633

Post by anuramat »

utopiah wrote: post #488
anuramat wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

stylistic preferences are pretty much the ONLY thing you could discuss (in the context of LLMs) that actually has anything to do with (natural) language in the first place; how is having preferences an "improper use of langauge"?

I'm not sure I follow. My point is that pretty much everybody who doesn't have a degree in CS or IT assumes due to BigAI corporations that LLMs or GenAI tools think. This is reflected by the words they use. Such people do not say "the model parse my query and process it via it neural network based architecture to give a statistically plausible answer given the context" but rather they say "I had a chat with Claude an…

two questions:

1. do you ever point out that you can't actually mine bitcoin with a pickaxe?

2. what made you think that the parent comment somehow implied that it "actually thinks"?

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

#634

Post by usrbinbash »

a3w wrote: post #628
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.

Why are you asking abouts facts? Okay, as a benchmark, we can try that. But it probably will never work, unless it does a web or db query.

Okay, so, should I not ask it about facts?

Because, one way or another, we will need to do that for LLMs to be useful. Whether the facts are in the training data or the context knowledge (RAG provided), is irrelevant. And besides, we are supposed to trust that these things have "world knowledge" and "emergent capabilities", precisely because their training data contain, well, facts.

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

#635

Post by BeetleB »

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…

> 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.

But is this realistic conversation?

If I say to a human I don't know "I'm feeling stressed and could use some relaxation tips" and he responds with "I’ve got you, Ron" I'd want to reduce my interactions with him.

If I ask someone to explain a technical concept, and he responds with "Nice, nerd stat time", it's a great tell that he's not a nerd. This is how people think nerds talk, not how nerds actually talk.

Regarding spilling coffee:

"Hey — no, they didn’t. You’re rattled, so your brain is doing that thing where it catastrophizes a tiny mishap into a character flaw."

I ... don't know where to even begin with this. I don't want to be told how my brain works. This is very patronizing. If I were to say this to a human coworker who spilled coffee, it's not going to endear me to the person.

I mean, seriously, try it out with real humans.

The thing with all of this is that everyone has his/her preferences on how they'd like a conversation. And that's why everyone has some circle of friends, and exclude others. The problem with their solution to a conversational style is the same as one trying to make friends: It will either attract or repel.

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

#636

Post by [deleted] »

wubrr wrote: post #603
brookst wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re in the minority here. I get it. I prefer cars with no power steering and few comforts. I write lots of my own small home utility apps. That’s just not the relationship most people want to have with tech and products.

I don't know what you're basing your 'minority' and 'most people' claims on, but seems highly unlikely.

[deleted]

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

#637

Post by tommit »

wickedsight wrote: post #510
falcor84 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm generally ok with it wanting a conversation, but yes, I absolutely hate it that is seems to always finish with a question even when it makes zero sense.

I wouldn't be surprised if this was a feature to drive engagement.

of course it is. this seems so obvious to me.

I even wrote into chatGPTs "memory" to NOT ASK FOLLOW UP QUESTIONS, because it's crazy annoying imo. it respects it about 40% of the time I'd say

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

#638

Post by SquareWheel »

glenneroo wrote: post #623
hypercube33 wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my saved memories is to always give shorter "chat like" concise to the point answers and give further description if prompted to only

I've read from several supposed AI prompt-masters that this actually reduces output quality. I can't speak to the validity of these claims though.

Forcing shorter answers will definitely reduce their quality. Every token an LLM generates is like a little bit of extra thinking time. Sometimes it needs to work up to an answer. If you end a response too quickly, such as by demanding one-word answers, it's much more likely to produce hallucinations.

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

#639

Post by ragequittah »

the_snooze wrote: post #580
nkrisc wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Language models are mathematical, statistical beasts. The beast generally doesn't do well with open ended questions (known as "zero-shot"). It shines when you give it something to work off of ("one-shot"). That is the usage that is advertised to the general public, so I think it's fair to critique it by way of this usage.

Yeah, the "you're using it wrong" argument falls flat on its face when the technology is presented as an all-in-one magic answer box. Why give these companies the benefit of the doubt instead of holding them accountable for what they claim this tech to be? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bBfYX8X5aU I like to ask these chatbots to generate 25 trivia questions and answers from "golden age" Simpsons. It fabricates comp…

Whenever I read something like this I do definitely think "you're using it wrong". This question would've certainly tripped up earlier models but new ones have absolutely no issue making this with sources for each question. Example:

https://chatgpt.com/share/69160c9e-b2ac-8001-ad39-966975971a...

(the 7 minutes thinking is because ChatGPT is unusually slow right now for any question)

These days I'd trust it to accurately give 100 questions only about Homer. LLMs really are quite a lot better than they used to be by a large margin if you use them right.

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

#640

Post by estimator7292 »

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.

"Ah-- that's a classic confusion about football players. Your intuition is almost right-- let me break it down"
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