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Investigating how prompt politeness affects LLM accuracy (2025)

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Re: Investigating how prompt politeness affects LLM accuracy (2025)

#201

Post by npw55036 »

razodactyl wrote: post #164
maxaw wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d rather lose 4% accuracy and practice kindness! I’ve been actively trying to avoid raging at the bot because I worry about this behaviour leaking into real world interactions

Yep. I'm with you here. If it's a 4% loss now for training data to catch up and improve later, we're better off in the long run. I'd like to believe that generally people are nice to AI for the sheer sake of enforcing good communication practices.

Agreed. We should avoid being overly emotional when solving problems and maintain exceptional rationality.

Re: Investigating how prompt politeness affects LLM accuracy (2025)

#202

Post by mr-wendel »

binary0010 wrote: post #182
mr-wendel wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Treating a machine like a human" is a two-party interaction. Of course the layers of matrix multiplication is unaffected by this, but I think that we are not. It's a great opportunity to exercise consistency and dedication to the beauty humanity is capable of and this extends to the entire gradient of conscious/sentient entities. It's as silly (to me) to argue that it's degrading to people to treat non-people well.…

I always turn off data tracking and training and mostly use ZDR services, so that's not an issue. And for the other parts. I just don't agree - maybe sure, it probably wouldn't be healthy to constantly be negative at a machine (or even a wall) for hours a day. But, let's say I work 8 hours, I spend 2 hours with an llm, and in those two hours I spend 10 minutes with some very negative prompts text for greater accuracy…

No, I don’t think it’s going to make you a meaner, more negative person. There is no tangible harm being done.

I genuinely believe it’s preventing you from becoming a better person by engaging in psychopathic behavior. If I were writing the things you describe in this thread I would be ashamed to have my loved ones read over my shoulder.

You could not pay me enough money to spend 10 minutes a day to write that stuff, even under full certainty it went into the void with no association back to me.

Re: Investigating how prompt politeness affects LLM accuracy (2025)

#203

Post by daymanstep »

irthomasthomas wrote: post #146
ricogallo wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We practice kindness between humans because of the law of reciprocity. Yet, this law is so embedded in us that practicing kindness even towards a rock makes us feel good. So practice kindness, first and foremost for yourself.

I do. But only towards entities capable of receiving it. Otherwise I am deceiving myself, and projecting intelligence that is not there. We (some of us) practice kindness automatically, but that trait was likely selected due to the benefit it gives us by activating the law of reciprocity. Edit: Also, your feeling good after being kind essentially completes the transaction. But I know being kind to an LLM has zero imp…

If by practicing kindness towards rocks, you become more inclined to act kindly towards other humans, then surely that is a net win.

Re: Investigating how prompt politeness affects LLM accuracy (2025)

#204

Post by daymanstep »

dlivingston wrote: post #187
dlev_pika wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My choice too. Paraphrasing Marcus Aurelius - You are not your thoughts, but they dye your soul.

And paraphrasing (allegedly) Aristotle: > "We are what we repeatedly do. [Kindness], therefore, is not an act, but a habit."

Kant also said something similar:

If he is not to stifle his human feelings, he must practice kindness towards animals, for he who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men.

Re: Investigating how prompt politeness affects LLM accuracy (2025)

#205

Post by xlii »

Not surprised at all.

Imagine Internet forum/StackOverflow etc. and a objectively bad description or attempt to a solved problem.

Pleasantry and back pats won't encourage the change while harsh words will either make poster go silent or push forward and improve.

AIs aren't people. They are statistical training sets which have majority of their sets consisting in human-like communication which gives them high probability of human-like speech. But it's not kindness or rudeness in the end. It's how good the pattern can scoop data out of training set.

Re: Investigating how prompt politeness affects LLM accuracy (2025)

#206

Post by bcjdjsndon »

miroljub wrote: post #128
bcjdjsndon wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's why a few close friends talking and scolding openly in a garage regularly beat corporate behemoths full of people spending a day figuring out how not to offend anyone (or how to offend someone without being punished). Literally not why lol you absolute dreamer Normally people who back this "I can talk how I like to people cos I'm being honest" are either genuinely autistic and can't read emotions, or they ha…

> Normally people who back this "I can talk how I like to people cos I'm being honest" are either genuinely autistic and can't read emotions, or they have just had a shitty homelife, parents or upbringing. I suspect you're the second. When I read a statement like this, I can give you two answers: 1st answer (direct): You are obviously too stupid to understand the difference between being direct and trying to insult p…

you've mixed up insulting and direct... You've insulted me in the so called direct response and were simply direct in the insulting response. This now points more to you being autistic

Re: Investigating how prompt politeness affects LLM accuracy (2025)

#207

Post by cwmoore »

daymanstep wrote: post #203
irthomasthomas wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do. But only towards entities capable of receiving it. Otherwise I am deceiving myself, and projecting intelligence that is not there. We (some of us) practice kindness automatically, but that trait was likely selected due to the benefit it gives us by activating the law of reciprocity. Edit: Also, your feeling good after being kind essentially completes the transaction. But I know being kind to an LLM has zero imp…

If by practicing kindness towards rocks, you become more inclined to act kindly towards other humans, then surely that is a net win.

And if instead, by anthropomorphizing inanimate objects we eliminate the affect of actual empathy, we obviate the need for being human at all.

Re: Investigating how prompt politeness affects LLM accuracy (2025)

#208

Post by cwmoore »

ahknight wrote: post #152
irthomasthomas wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you cannot practice kindness towards a computer program. A computer is incapable of receiving it. We practice kindness between humans because of the law of reciprocity. You be kind hoping the other person will reciprocate. That is the social contract. AI cannot participate in this, yet. Edit: Kindness REQUIRES two living beings, one to give and one to receive. If there is no receiver, there is no kindness. Appare…

Kindness is that, yes. Fundamentally, though, it's about being considerate in one's actions so as to not harm others. If someone truly believes that acting a certain way at any point risks their ability to reliably be kind in others, then it's a social kindness to be kind and considerate in all actions. I'll not reach for the easy response and say "Be kind to the Earth" fails your definition without reaching for peda…

Gaia Hypothesis might like to have a conversation about your wet rock.

Re: Investigating how prompt politeness affects LLM accuracy (2025)

#209

Post by voakbasda »

binary0010 wrote: post #137
voakbasda wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did I imply they have feelings? I am saying that how you act toward a machine is real. As real as your behavior directed toward other humans. Being an asshole to a machine is still being an asshole.

That doesn't make any sense. If a thing has no feelings, and an output makes it more accurate, I cannot for the life of me understand why that would make a person an asshole. So boxing is violent. And I have chosen to box in my past. Does that mean I'm a violent person now? Even though I go out of my way to deescalate real fights? I play games as the villain and and mass murder people in the game. Does that mean I'm…

If you pursue boxing, then, yes, I am going to be weary of you (at first), because you clearly enjoy violence. Or at least beating up other people. At least as compared to the average population

If you are an asshole to a computer, then you have created similarly biases in my expectations about your potential behavior toward humans.

Observations create expectations. Be an asshole in any context, and people will assume you can be an asshole in other contexts.

Simple solution: never be an asshole.

Re: Investigating how prompt politeness affects LLM accuracy (2025)

#210

Post by binary0010 »

mr-wendel wrote: post #202
binary0010 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always turn off data tracking and training and mostly use ZDR services, so that's not an issue. And for the other parts. I just don't agree - maybe sure, it probably wouldn't be healthy to constantly be negative at a machine (or even a wall) for hours a day. But, let's say I work 8 hours, I spend 2 hours with an llm, and in those two hours I spend 10 minutes with some very negative prompts text for greater accuracy…

No, I don’t think it’s going to make you a meaner, more negative person. There is no tangible harm being done. I genuinely believe it’s preventing you from becoming a better person by engaging in psychopathic behavior. If I were writing the things you describe in this thread I would be ashamed to have my loved ones read over my shoulder. You could not pay me enough money to spend 10 minutes a day to write that stuff,…

I'd say it's fairly likely that you aren't a better person than me by being so fearful and shame-based.

But I'm not here to pontificate about who's a better person and don't really care.

You're mindset sounds kind of painful to me to be honest. Obviously we are just very different types of people. I've had family see my chats plenty of times and we laugh about this stuff - it couldn't mean less to any of us.

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