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Investigating how prompt politeness affects LLM accuracy (2025)

arxiv.org

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

#211

Post by binary0010 »

voakbasda wrote: post #209
binary0010 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 assu…

I will continue never being an asshole to people and animals. And will continue using inanimate tools in the best way possible.

If you are scared and mad about it - I guess we won't be friends, which is likely the best for both our mental sanity.

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

#212

Post by no-name-here »

irthomasthomas wrote: post #138
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

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 REQUIRES two living beings, one to give and one to receive.

Would a plant or insect fall under this definition?

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

#213

Post by mr-wendel »

binary0010 wrote: post #210
mr-wendel wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Except... stating who is a better person is exactly what you just did. I've never attempted to compare myself to others. I've stated that I think negative behavior inhibits growth, even when done to nobody, and positive behavior sets you up for additional successes elsewhere.

I've no desire to try to change your mind. I can't. But clearly you do care because you've been both quite defensive and assertive in tackling opposing points of view.

My hope is to inspire others to be more creative in their use of AI. It interesting (but not exactly unsurprising) that prompt politeness can inhibit accuracy. Surely there are lessons here than can translate into how help other people out through clear, direct language that avoids the pitfalls of being rude or coddling.

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

#214

Post by binary0010 »

mr-wendel wrote: post #213
binary0010 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Except... stating who is a better person is exactly what you just did. I've never attempted to compare myself to others. I've stated that I think negative behavior inhibits growth, even when done to nobody, and positive behavior sets you up for additional successes elsewhere. I've no desire to try to change your mind. I can't. But clearly you do care because you've been both quite defensive and assertive in tackling…

Well, this tone you've taken - If you reread your previous message - you state I am showing psychopathic behavior and similar shame-based tactics. And that I would be a better person if I didn't do psychopathic things.

I'd say it's fairly normal and human of me to have some kind of reaction to that, no?

You must understand that speaking to other people like that will result in them reacting and being less conducive to productive conversation.

We will probably never see eye to eye on this.

You: negative tokens for higher accuracy on inanimate objects is psychopathic behavior. I want you to stop and I see you as a psychopath - although it is resulting in nothing bad to any living being.

Me: Using negative tokens on an inanimate object returns significant improval on accuracy. It does zero harm to any living being. This is a completely neutral action.

Are you upset (or concerned) about people watching movies with violence in them, or playing games where you can and do kill things?

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

#215

Post by DrewADesign »

bcjdjsndon wrote: post #90
Asraelite wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are conflating obnoxiousness with directness.

Rudeness is completely arbitrary and you have to figure it what exactly is rude by, basically, upsetting humans and avoiding whatever caused the upset in the future. People who either can't or don't want to do that say they're "direct" or "honest" or "logical" but there's another word for it, begins with A

> begins with A

Afraid.

I worked in a job that involved lots of confrontation — everything from heated arguments to brawls. Later in life, in knowledge work fields, the similarity in base human behaviors is impossible to ignore: the less confident someone is in themselves, the more overtly aggressive and pugnacious they are. Everybody has bad days, but in general, people that are confident and comfortable are usually calm, willing to entertain differing ideas rationally, and have no trouble presenting their ideas without browbeating people into agreeing with them. People lacking confidence are nervous, and preparing to endure rejection before they even open their mouths. By the time what they’re saying comes out, they’re in full-on a-hole mode, and assume anyone that engages with them is also looking for a fight.

Bringing it back to physical confrontation, could you imagine an action film where the hero walks around trying you square off with anyone that bumped into them, or levied some other perceived disrespect? No. They walk around calm because they know they can handle whatever comes up.

When you’re in the mind of the person unknowingly engaging in that emotional self-defense strategy, it’s pretty opaque. It feels like being confident. To everyone else it’s just obnoxious and sad.

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

#216

Post by mr-wendel »

binary0010 wrote: post #214
mr-wendel wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except... stating who is a better person is exactly what you just did. I've never attempted to compare myself to others. I've stated that I think negative behavior inhibits growth, even when done to nobody, and positive behavior sets you up for additional successes elsewhere. I've no desire to try to change your mind. I can't. But clearly you do care because you've been both quite defensive and assertive in tackling…

Well, this tone you've taken - If you reread your previous message - you state I am showing psychopathic behavior and similar shame-based tactics. And that I would be a better person if I didn't do psychopathic things. I'd say it's fairly normal and human of me to have some kind of reaction to that, no? You must understand that speaking to other people like that will result in them reacting and being less conducive t…

“Engaging in” isn’t the same thing as doing. It was meant to imply a degree of separation from the act itself. Statements like “I will murder your family unless” are exactly that. Obviously you would never do anything remotely close to that.

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

#217

Post by RealStupidity »

tikimcfee wrote: post #113
binary0010 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, I've been using llms in this way (nearly daily) for 4 years. I'm extremely aggressive and demeaning when I talk to them wherever I think I'll see a better result. I'm still extremely kind and polite to everybody in real life, and feel very deeply about people - how I treat them, and care for their emotional state. There is absolutely zero crossover between getting a text machine to return a result vs a re…

Then I'll be honest and say that your kindness is likely a façade and I wouldn't trust you if I knew the real you. I'm sorry to say that, and I really don't know who you are at all, but if you're willing to act that way at something that you feel is non-sentient, then all it takes is for someone to convince you that something is non-sentient for you to treat it that way. So, what words does it take for you to conside…

You're really clutching at straws here, have you ever been convinced something isn't sentient? Do you think everything is sentient? I understand the argument that normalizing with something like an asshole could cause you to act that way outside of that context, but I really don't see anyone getting convinced that some sentient thing suddenly isn't.

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

#218

Post by kbelder »

miroljub wrote: post #45
robinhouston wrote: post #28

Most of the comments here seem to be from people who haven’t even read the abstract, let alone the paper. The main result, mentioned in the abstract, is the opposite of what I would have guessed: > Contrary to expectations, impolite prompts consistently outperformed polite ones, with accuracy ranging from 80.8% for Very Polite prompts to 84.8% for Very Rude prompts. These findings differ from earlier studies that ass…

> Contrary to expectations, impolite prompts consistently outperformed polite ones, with accuracy ranging from 80.8% for Very Polite prompts to 84.8% for Very Rude prompts. These findings differ from earlier studies that associated rudeness with poorer outcomes, suggesting that newer LLMs may respond differently to tonal variation. The expectation is naive. Even when communicating with humans, you get a better outcom…

Politeness is me speaking directly and freely. Rudeness is a facade and a burden, that I employ only when circumstances require it.

I suspect that most people are like that.

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

#220

Post by irthomasthomas »

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.

Is there a cost? For LLMs this article claims the cost is ~5%
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