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AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

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Re: AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#151

Post by est »

Sharlin wrote: post #5
oldfrenchfries wrote: post #3

There is a striking data visualization showing the breakup advice trend over 15 years on Reddit. You can see the "End relationship" line spike as AI and algorithmic advice take over: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1o87cy4/oc...

More interesting, IMO, is the general trend that started long before LLMs. The fact that "dump them" is the standard answer to any relationship question is a meme by now. The LLMs appear to be doing exactly what one would expect them to be doing based on their training corpus.

the year is 2015

smart phones took over the world, social networks happened.

Turns out they are the best sterializer human ever invented.

I just wrote a blog https://blog.est.im/2026/stdin-09

Re: AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#154

Post by ajkjk »

awithrow wrote: post #34

It feels like I'm fighting uphill battle when it comes to bouncing ideas off of a model. I'll set things up in the context with instructions similar to. "Help me refine my ideas, challenge, push back, and don't just be agreeable." It works for a bit but eventually the conversation creeps back into complacency and syncophancy. I'll check it too by asking "are you just placating me?" the funny thing is that often it'll…

'admit' isn't really the right word for that... the fact that it was placating you wasn't true until you prompted it to say so. Unlike a person who has an 'internal emotional state' independent of what they say that you can probe by asking questions.

Re: AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#155

Post by Forgeties79 »

potatoskins wrote: post #130
dimgl wrote: post #124

Even as someone who (wrongly) believed that I had high emotional intelligence, I too was bit by this. Almost a year ago when LLMs were starting to become more ubiquitous and powerful I discussed a big life/professional decision with an LLM over the course of many months. I took its recommendation. Ultimately it turned out to be the wrong decision. Thankfully it was recoverable, but it really sobered me up on LLMs. Th…

Yeah, I think Claude is a lot more logical in that sense, I use it for some therapy sessions myself and it pushes back a bit more than Open AI and Gemini

I would be very careful doing this

Re: AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#156

Post by dinkumthinkum »

fourside wrote: post #37
sph wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do low income people have to do with it, when AI companies and research is borne out of Silicon Valley culture of rich, liberal Californians? I'm still waiting for models based on the curt and abrasive stereotype of Eastern European programmers, as contrast to the sickeningly cheerful AIs we have today that couldn't sound more West Coast if they tried.

Low income and liberal is usually code for certain “undesirables” that conservatives tend to dislike. Better watch what LLM your kids use or they might end up speaking Spanish and listening to rap ;).

Eh, or grow up hating American and thinking they need to fly to Cuba to explain to the people are great communism is for them. Who knows.

Re: AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#157

Post by colechristensen »

awithrow wrote: post #34

It feels like I'm fighting uphill battle when it comes to bouncing ideas off of a model. I'll set things up in the context with instructions similar to. "Help me refine my ideas, challenge, push back, and don't just be agreeable." It works for a bit but eventually the conversation creeps back into complacency and syncophancy. I'll check it too by asking "are you just placating me?" the funny thing is that often it'll…

>"Help me refine my ideas, challenge, push back, and don't just be agreeable."

This is where you're doing it wrong.

If your LLM has a problem being more agreeable than you want, prompt it in a way that makes being agreeable contrary to your real intentions.

"there are bugs and logic problems in this code" "find the strongest refutation of this argument" "I don't like this plan and need to develop a solid argument against it"

Asking for top ten lists is a good method, it will rarely not come up with anything but you can go back and forth and refine until it's 10 ten reasons why your plan is bad are all insubstantial nonsense then you've made progress

Re: AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#158

Post by lovecg »

dimgl wrote: post #124

Even as someone who (wrongly) believed that I had high emotional intelligence, I too was bit by this. Almost a year ago when LLMs were starting to become more ubiquitous and powerful I discussed a big life/professional decision with an LLM over the course of many months. I took its recommendation. Ultimately it turned out to be the wrong decision. Thankfully it was recoverable, but it really sobered me up on LLMs. Th…

Let’s just hope that the people in charge of the really important decisions that affect us all approach LLM generated advice with the same wisdom.

Re: AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#159

Post by post-it »

wisemanwillhear wrote: post #102

With AI, I often like to act like a 3rd party who doesn't have skin in the game and ask the AI to give the strongest criticisms of both sides. Acting like I hold the opposite position as I truly hold can help sometimes as well. Pretending to change my mind is another trick. The idea is to keep the AI from guessing where I stand.

> Acting like I hold the opposite position as I truly hold can help sometimes as well.

I find this helps a lot. So does taking a step back from my actual question. Like if there's a mysterious sound coming from my car and I think it might be the coolant pump, I just describe the sound, I don't mention the pump. If the AI then independently mentions the pump, there's a good chance I'm on the right track.

Being familiar with the scientific method, and techniques for blinding studies, helps a lot, because this is a lot like trying to not influence study participants.

Re: AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#160

Post by mock-possum »

rsynnott wrote: post #119
awithrow wrote: post #34

It feels like I'm fighting uphill battle when it comes to bouncing ideas off of a model. I'll set things up in the context with instructions similar to. "Help me refine my ideas, challenge, push back, and don't just be agreeable." It works for a bit but eventually the conversation creeps back into complacency and syncophancy. I'll check it too by asking "are you just placating me?" the funny thing is that often it'll…

Why not... do this with a person, instead? Other humans are available. (Seriously, I don't understand this. Plenty of humans will be only too happy to argue with you.)

Arguing with a human costs social energy. Chatting with a robot does not.
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