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The user is visibly frustrated

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Re: The user is visibly frustrated

#101

Post by another-dave »

cadamsdotcom wrote: post #40

You need to automate the pointing out of mistakes. Create your own linters, your own check scripts. Hook them to git pre-commit, either yourself or with husky or python pre-commit. The agent should never finish its work with dumb mistakes still in it. If it does.. you need more checks. Anything repetitive should be automated - even slapping your forgetful coding agent on the wrist…

I really wish there was a "pre prompt" hook natively. As in, before the agent releases control back to me to prompt it again, it runs the hook.

I have a pre-push hook that runs all lint/prettier/typechecks/tests etc. These are all clearly signposted in the project, the AGENTS and CLAUDE files are set to run them.

Still though, I'll get it saying "All done" and then it'll fail something basic like formatting when I go to push. Or I've come back to a 'ralph wiggum' loop before and found it saying "tests are broken, but that's not part of this commit, so ignoring"

Re: The user is visibly frustrated

#102

Post by hypfer »

layer8 wrote: post #52
RandomBK wrote: post #36

I've found swearing at a model to be quite effective in getting it to rethink and correct its mistakes. This seems to apply across Codex, Claude, Qwen, and Gemma/Gemini. I don't know if the model is picking up on a "need to lock in and be more rigorous" signal, or if the model providers are routing to smarter models if they detect a frustrated user. But if a model keeps making the same mistakes, swearing at it often…

I would prefer not having to get into a habit that might bleed into non-LLM interactions.

It might improve the general state of "professional" software though. When done selectively and dosed just right that is.

Re: The user is visibly frustrated

#103

Post by idonotknowwhy »

Am I the only one who doesn't get angry at LLMs?

From the blog:

>I don’t really get anything useful out of these postmortems (e.g., clues about how to rephrase my instructions)

Unfortunately, an LLM can't actually reflect or advise how you could have improve the prompt. Otherwise we could give them a sample output and say "Generate the prompt that would produce this output.

Re: The user is visibly frustrated

#105

Post by whywhywhywhy »

layer8 wrote: post #52
RandomBK wrote: post #36

I've found swearing at a model to be quite effective in getting it to rethink and correct its mistakes. This seems to apply across Codex, Claude, Qwen, and Gemma/Gemini. I don't know if the model is picking up on a "need to lock in and be more rigorous" signal, or if the model providers are routing to smarter models if they detect a frustrated user. But if a model keeps making the same mistakes, swearing at it often…

I would prefer not having to get into a habit that might bleed into non-LLM interactions.

If you’re talking to people the same way an LLM is spoken to then you’re already being rude.

Re: The user is visibly frustrated

#106

Post by zeumo »

My take on the issue is that for most use cases where AI is pushed to the general public, a conversational chatbot is not the right tool, and the experience is bound to be frustrating.

Remember when Copilot was basically a super-smart version of Intellisense? It was awesome. Sure, there was a lot of pushback and concern, mainly about licensing and ethical issues, none of which are solved with the current chatbot model. But now I also have to come up with a prompt and type it out. How is that an improvement over having the LLM use surrounding code as context and figure out how to fill in the blanks? A well integrated tool beats a bolted-on chatbot any time for me. Another example would be translation: in Firefox, I can right click any text or click the 文/A button, and I can translate the text or the whole page from basically any language to any other. The frontier LLM's solution is to prompt their chatbot to do the task, which is a downgrade. Sure, I could also ask Claude to write a poem, but when I need to translate a webpage, it doesn't help much.

I get why all major AI companies push towards this solution, because they can build a single tool and sell it to everyone, and that training their models is very expensive and they can't afford to alienate any part of the potential market. But ultimately they're building Swiss army knives, which are able to do basically anything, but will never be able to allow users to tighten a screw better than a well designed screwdriver. Sure, I won't ever be able to clip my nails with a screwdriver, but if my business is tightening screws, I won't tolerate using a Swiss army knife for long.

Please build actual tools. Not textboxes for me to try and configure a non-deterministic tool. Then frustration will go down.

Re: The user is visibly frustrated

#107

Post by mycocola »

apsurd wrote: post #100
mycocola wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comparison fails because I don't send numbers to my potatoes either, but I do send thousands to calculators without a please and thank you. Practicing communications skills with LLMs I can get, but asserting that people who don't are playing god? Getting off on power?

The criticism comes because people self-share how they berate the agents, argue and curse at them. It's right here in the comment section. one comment speaks of causing physical (simulated i guess) thousand year pain as a means of obedience. it's weird.

LLMs are not beings with thoughts or feelings, and if being mean to them were to somehow yield better results it would be no different than a cheat code in a game, or just constitute as clever use of game mechanics.

Re: The user is visibly frustrated

#108

Post by noodletheworld »

Imagine you have a slot machine that consistently gives you 1-5 dollars for every dollar you put in.

You like it.

It feels good, and although you don't win a lot, you consistently win.

…buuut, its a trap.

As you put more money in, the win rate goes down.

You still mostly win when you put 50s in, but it hurts more when you lose, but its still a net gain…

So you start on bigger projects, unsupervised agents, multi agent workflows. You’re dropping 1000s in each time, and…

…and now, you start find yourself shouting at the slot machine.

Its great when it works, but interactions are stressful, because the stakes are higher and fails hurt more.

Screw this, you go back to smaller stakes. Its great.

…but now you're slower, you miss the big wins from big stakes.

So you go back.

…and you get angry. Again. And again. And again… and you’re still kind of winning, and the wins are great but the fails are Super Annoying, because they waste your time, your money, your attention.

It should Just Work but instead why the fuck did you rm -rf my project folder claude?

I think people arent stupid, but we are suckers, and we will dynamically balance the way we use a slot machine tool like this to the very edge of our tolerance for risk and failure.

…and that varies from person to person; but it makes everyone angry when they tip too far and fall into the “repeatedly pull slot machine arm angrily” trap.

Non deterministic tools will always be like this.

It’s like doom scrolling. We’re wired for it. Or at least I am.

Re: The user is visibly frustrated

#109

Post by 8note »

whstl wrote: post #29
wcoenen wrote: post #4

The UX problem is elsewhere I think. Many users probably don't realize that the agent's context window is limited, and that clever compaction is happening regularly to make it seem infinite. But that necessarily means the agent has to forget stuff. As a result, users will keep reusing the same coding or chat session again and again. While it would be better to start fresh for unrelated tasks.

I don't believe this is a context problem. Claude Opus 4.7 has a very large context compared to itself, but IME it is the worst at following instructions, and completely disregards the (small) preferences prompt, even in the first or second message, even if the messages are just a few characters long. IMO this is entirely a training problem.

if you look at claude code, it now says compaction is happening constantly, which is likely why

Re: The user is visibly frustrated

#110

Post by dust-jacket »

poly2it wrote: post #26
wcoenen wrote: post #4

The UX problem is elsewhere I think. Many users probably don't realize that the agent's context window is limited, and that clever compaction is happening regularly to make it seem infinite. But that necessarily means the agent has to forget stuff. As a result, users will keep reusing the same coding or chat session again and again. While it would be better to start fresh for unrelated tasks.

The author of this post and the readers of this thread probably do understand context window limitations, but are frustrated nonetheless.

Well yeah. And there's little more frustrating than someone telling you not be frustrated because "that's just how it works".

We get how it works. It's just irritating.

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