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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

#552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's amazing you have more than one account, aren't a power mod, and haven't been IP banned yet.

Having more than one account isn't against Reddit's ToS. If you use your different accounts in different subreddits and never have your accounts interact, you won't be banned.

If you don't restrict each account to specific subreddits, it's quite likely that one will get banned somewhere without you noticing or remembering.

If you happen to post to the same subreddit with another account at some point, Reddit bans all of your accounts.

Re: AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to get poor fast, you can follow the most up voted advices on r/wallstreetbets.

Would be interesting to have data on that. If it was true, you could win by always doing the opposite!

Just because one action is demonstrably harmful does not mean its negation is automatically beneficial.

Or, formally, my claim is A implies B. The only logical contrapositive is non B implies non A. (not losing money means not following advices on r/wallstreetbets)

But you say: non A implies non B, which is the fallacy of denying the antecedent.

Re: AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#555

Not sure if this is a general trend amongst att LLMS but ChatGPT did over time become more and more affirming with its iterations. I just recently switched away from the OpenAI garden largely because of it. I do wonder if this was caused by some quirk of the training or if it really tests as a positive feature for most people. When i talk about stuff i don't want a mirror i already have a mirror. I want to be questio…

ChatGPT has style settings, you probably should set it to something else than the default. Go to your personalization settings and change base style and tone. I have set it as 'efficient' which is less cheery. I can see why attention economy would lead setting the defaults towards more 'affirming' as it keep people more engaged and coming back.

Re: AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your research background in this area?

How is that relevant. A decent scientist can critique general design aspects of a paper in any field. They're hardly splitting hairs on some niche topic.

Apologies, I didn't realise they were a decent scientist.

Re: AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would be interesting to have data on that. If it was true, you could win by always doing the opposite!

Just because one action is demonstrably harmful does not mean its negation is automatically beneficial. Or, formally, my claim is A implies B. The only logical contrapositive is non B implies non A. (not losing money means not following advices on r/wallstreetbets) But you say: non A implies non B, which is the fallacy of denying the antecedent.

It doesnt have to be universally true to be true in a mathematical system like options/puts/calls.

Re: AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, I'll bite the artillery shell: I don't mean to dismiss you or what you are saying; in fact I strongly relate - wouldn't it be nice to be able to hash things out with people and mutually benefit from both the shared and the diverging perspectives implied in such interaction? Isn't that the most natural thing in the world? Unfortunately these days this sounds halfway between a very privileged perspective and a pie…

> When was the last time a person took responsibility for the bad outcome you got as a direct consequence of following their advice? ... I mean, the LLM certainly isn't going to do that.

[dead]

Re: AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All you need to do ask it directly. What do you mean? Can you give an example?

“Don’t be a sycophant, give it to me straight” “Argue against X”

The issue is it will follow your instructions. It's sycophancy one step removed.

Re: AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to get poor fast, you can follow the most up voted advices on r/wallstreetbets.

Would be interesting to have data on that. If it was true, you could win by always doing the opposite!

Not necessarily. WSB users are trying to make it big, which means betting on long shots. This could be penny stocks, companies on the verge of bankruptcy, or ones with more sentimental value than fundamentals.

Betting against these companies is obvious and expected, so the cost of shorting might be high enough that even if you’re correct (stock goes down, the opposition of what WSB said), paying the cost of the short (the fee to borrow the stock from someone else) is high enough that you still lose money.

Also:

1. shorting stocks can be quite dangerous. Your downside is, well, not infinite but it can easily wipe you out.

2. You might be correct that the stock goes down, but over what time frame? Again, you have to pay money to hold a short. Or you’re using a different financial instrument that has a specific timeline. If the market does move in your direction but too late, you still lose.

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