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The user is visibly frustrated

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Re: The user is visibly frustrated

#141

Post by scotty79 »

pscanf wrote: post #131
apsurd wrote: post #27

Working with LLMs is great for building communication skills. Communicating effectively is one of the hardest skills and it's baked into everything we do as humans. I'd say as a matter of principle: blame it on a communication failure on your end vs blaming the stupid LLM since you're the only one that can do anything about it. So I don't think it's a matter of form; whether the AI should or shouldn't act like a huma…

Author here. I definitely agree that communicating well is a prerequisite to getting decent results. On the other hand: 1. Even if you communicate perfectly, there's no guarantee that the LLM will "behave as instructed" and as you imagined it to. Indeed, the frustration often comes from the fact that you've said something as clear as day, yet the agent takes another path. 2. Part of the value of coding agents is exac…

> Even if you communicate perfectly, there's no guarantee that the LLM will "behave as instructed" and as you imagined it to. Indeed, the frustration often comes from the fact that you've said something as clear as day, yet the agent takes another path.

People forget. People misunderstand clear things. Teach yourself to not judge people for being human. You'll have easier time with AI. You are not gonna be angry at 5 year old because it occasionally can't follow your instructions. AI is a 5 year old that accidentally ate all the encyclopedias in the world and is super eager to help. Be a more charitable, generous, understanding person, even in the absence of actual people.

Also try a stronger model. There is a difference. I have very good results with Codex but don't get fixated on any one, they are all "state of the art" or close but they are different and state of the art is moving ahead faster and faster.

Re: The user is visibly frustrated

#143

Post by anal_reactor »

aa-jv wrote: post #94
anal_reactor wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You cannot just ignore natural laws and assume, because you 'know better', your software will 'be better'. And whether we like it or not, all software follows a philosophically natural law, which has evolved over decades of human attention. Ignoring these natural laws (...) is only gonna get you butt-hurt, kiddo. If only you could just read these words back to yourself. Designing perfect software is NOT the case 90…

Its an utter fallacy to state that you have to stop doing quality processes if you want to deliver software, rapidly. Abandoning quality review steps only seems to be 'more efficient' if you're utterly crap at doing quality processes in the first place - but, the more you do them, the better you get at it, faster - so really you're just saying "people who are crap at doing quality-control processes on their software…

> effectively ignoring the time wasted in bug triage and other user-unfriendly experiences that result from this lack of quality process, down the line...

The problem is you circled back to valuing user experience itself, while MONEY(UX) looks like a sigmoid, not linear. As long as the UX isn't so horribly broken that most of your customers walk away, it's stupid to spend resources improving UX because you'll get marginal gains at best.

The largest airline in EU is Ryanair. You book it because it's the cheapest. The flight is delayed so you're late for the train, the seats are uncomfortable, customer support doesn't exist, you get constantly bombarded with ads, your day is ruined. You hate it but what are you doing to do next time you fly? Book Ryanair because it's the cheapest. You know it, they know it, your mom knows it.

Re: The user is visibly frustrated

#144

Post by andOlga »

Every time someone claims LLMs "talk like real people", I have to wonder what kind of people they talk to, what kind of conversations they lead, and just how boring their life must be. Like. What? No, they do not. No person actually talks like this while they're being a person. At work, sure. But that's not "people mode".

> Make the agent sound clinical, robotic.

It literally already does. I don't know how you'd make it sound less natural than this, at that point, without making it literally go "beep-boop" every sentence.

Re: The user is visibly frustrated

#145

Post by zrn900 »

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 don't understand - are people's agents making so many mistakes? I'm using VSCode + Cline + Mimo to refactor big codebases and add features (including payment integrations) and it's rarely making any mistakes.

Re: The user is visibly frustrated

#146

Post by scotty79 »

Chance-Device wrote: post #125

We get so angry at LLMs because we can . Without any social or even emotional repercussions for expressing these emotions. If the models actually acted like people in response, we wouldn’t do it. Some of the people I work with daily make similar mistakes, I don’t find myself yelling at them. I think this is simply part of the darker side of human nature, when we interact with entities who will take abuse, we tend to…

I dread people who get abusive with AI, because I know it's only fear that prevents them from being like that with me. Even if only it is the fear of hurting me, it's still terrible because every fear can pass.

Re: The user is visibly frustrated

#147

Post by purkka »

Retr0id wrote: post #130
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 just say "bruh". Per knowyourmeme: > "Bruh" is a popular variant of the slang term "bro" that is often used as an interjection to convey frustration or disappointment at something.

I've found this to be effective as well. Claude generally immediately identifies the stupid code pattern it used and tries to fix it (with somewhat varying results).

Re: The user is visibly frustrated

#148

Post by layer8 »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #105
layer8 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I talk to LLMs the same way I talk to people.

The only difference is that I interrupt the LLM when I find a typo in my prompt. ;)

Re: The user is visibly frustrated

#149

Post by watwut »

apsurd wrote: post #27

Working with LLMs is great for building communication skills. Communicating effectively is one of the hardest skills and it's baked into everything we do as humans. I'd say as a matter of principle: blame it on a communication failure on your end vs blaming the stupid LLM since you're the only one that can do anything about it. So I don't think it's a matter of form; whether the AI should or shouldn't act like a huma…

LLM is a tool, it is not communication failure. This is like saying I should treat null pointer with workaround as a communication failure between me and the software.

Re: The user is visibly frustrated

#150

Post by watwut »

scotty79 wrote: post #141
pscanf wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here. I definitely agree that communicating well is a prerequisite to getting decent results. On the other hand: 1. Even if you communicate perfectly, there's no guarantee that the LLM will "behave as instructed" and as you imagined it to. Indeed, the frustration often comes from the fact that you've said something as clear as day, yet the agent takes another path. 2. Part of the value of coding agents is exac…

> Even if you communicate perfectly, there's no guarantee that the LLM will "behave as instructed" and as you imagined it to. Indeed, the frustration often comes from the fact that you've said something as clear as day, yet the agent takes another path. People forget. People misunderstand clear things. Teach yourself to not judge people for being human. You'll have easier time with AI. You are not gonna be angry at 5…

> Teach yourself to not judge people for being human. You'll have easier time with AI.

LLM is not a human. This implication that OP or someone else is impatient against people when they get frustrated with effin machine is completely absurd.

> AI is a 5 year old that accidentally ate all the encyclopedias in the world and is super eager to help

LLM is not 5 years old kid. It is an expensive tool.

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