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The user is visibly frustrated

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Re: The user is visibly frustrated

#261

Post by lukewarm707 »

roel_v wrote: post #124
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 only used Claude a bit, but one of the things I dislike about it, is that it starts to 'push back' when you swear at it, saying things like 'if you continue like this, I won't be able to work with you' and such. I'm like MF'er you're a token prediction algorithm, what are you talking about, and it just makes me irrationally dislike it more. Codex otoh just lets you vent and straight up ignores such outbursts.

"don't be rude or i'll refuse" is just a bizarre choice by anthropic.

both unfounded on llm architecture and contrary to how tools should operate safely

just so strange as well to hear it pretend on purpose like this.

"i'm sorry dave, i'm afraid i can't do that"

Re: The user is visibly frustrated

#262

Post by Foskya »

astrange wrote: post #240
Foskya wrote: post #37

> They talk like real people. They use a relaxed and friendly tone. They often praise you, and when they “push back” they’re gentle and attentive. > Maybe I would prefer a more radical solution: drop the human pretense entirely. Make the agent sound clinical, robotic. Honestly this problem is easy to solve when you gave them the right instructions. It stops being a "relationship" and stars being a tool (for some exam…

Do you actually have evidence this works and doesn't degrade performance?

I've seen a few studies about it. If i remeber correctly, basically making them talk like a caveman increases the information density of every token and decreases the chance that they would allucinate.

As sources this is the one i found but i'm sure there are others: > Persona-based Prompting Has An Effect on Theory-of-Mind Reasoning in Large Language Models > Text Compression as a Proxy for LLM Reasoning Efficiency

Re: The user is visibly frustrated

#263

Post by scotty79 »

recursive wrote: post #257
scotty79 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the issue. You frame your relationships with people using words like "grace" and "patience". If you were "good natured", "kind hearted", "understanding" and "nurturing" instead you wouldn't have to "extend" it to "machines" because those are not limited resources you can run out of. Politeness towards AI would come naturally because of who you are. The only thing you could run out of is energy and that's easy…

You're making a lot of assertions about the nature of relationships and the definition of machines. I'll assume this is based on a philosophy that works for you. But now you have set up a system of definitions where, for example, a good natured person, by definition, cannot be frustrated. It kind of sounds like sophistry to me. I genuinely don't understand your argument about machines. It's not a machine it's just a…

> You're making a lot of assertions about the nature of relationships and the definition of machines. I'll assume this is based on a philosophy that works for you

Always.

> But now you have set up a system of definitions where, for example, a good natured person, by definition, cannot be frustrated.

> It kind of sounds like sophistry to me.

It's just my lived experience. When I get frustrated I don't look for guilty and their flaws or seek retribution. I'm feeling something more along the lines "I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed." and tired that the world is not in the state I would like it to be.

Do you think Mr. Rogers would verbally abuse AI if it wasn't giving him answers he expected because he ran out of "patience" or "grace"?

> I genuinely don't understand your argument about machines. It's not a machine it's just a system of levers and pulleys.

Think for a moment about a "machine". List all the things that you expect of machines, that you think they ought to be, that you know they sometimes are. Think about their behaviors both intended and unintended. Think about would you evaluate what is a good and a bad machine. Now you have a rough picture of what a machine is for you.

Now try to imagine something else like a fast food worker, or a cat or a dining experience. Try to imagine that whatever you came up with is a machine. You expect them to have machine qualities, machine flaws and you expect of them what you would expect of a machine. Inspect how many mistakes would you make if you navigated the world with assumption that they belong to a "machine" class. How many frustrations and of what kinds would that bring.

Regardless of LLMs implementation details, based only on the results and frustrations, yours and reported by other people, can you recognize that thinking about them as of "machines" is a misclassification error?

Something like a ChatGPT app is more of a machine, but nearly its entire value comes from the main component that has almost nothing to do with the concept of a machine.

Re: The user is visibly frustrated

#264

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

ytoawwhra92 wrote: post #251
HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course - remember it is not trying to answer your question or do what you ask, just trying to do what it was trained to do which is generate the statistically most likely continuation of your input. Your input sets the tone for the type of response that is statistically likely to follow. Idiots tend to engage with other idiots, and experts tend to seek out experts to talk to .. this is what it has been trained on,…

For many of these tools your prompt is a small part of the initial input, and it shrinks as a proportion of the total as more information is added to the context. IME you can get great results from crappy prompts if the surrounding context is high quality, and you'll often get terrible results from great prompts if the surrounding context is low quality or non-existent. Same goes for the training corpus, I imagine. I…

True - and some may have been RLHF’d to give more rigorous/expert responses regardless of how the question/request is posed. Still, others responding here say that swearing at the model can be helpful (a signal to cut the BS I suppose), and an LLM wouldn’t be doing the job it was trained for if it’s response wasn’t highly attuned to the input

Re: The user is visibly frustrated

#265

Post by jurgenburgen »

layer8 wrote: post #148
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. ;)

I kill the LLM and rebirth a new instance of it. Wouldn’t work out so well for human interactions.

Re: The user is visibly frustrated

#267

Post by eddythompson80 »

Pay08 wrote: post #255
eddythompson80 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well you know it kept improving. It got pretty good, though everyone moved to full "agentic" changes over autocomplete.

Maybe it shouldn't have been forced on me if it wasn't ready, then.

I’m sorry you were victimized.

Re: The user is visibly frustrated

#268

Post by recursive »

scotty79 wrote: post #263
recursive wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making a lot of assertions about the nature of relationships and the definition of machines. I'll assume this is based on a philosophy that works for you. But now you have set up a system of definitions where, for example, a good natured person, by definition, cannot be frustrated. It kind of sounds like sophistry to me. I genuinely don't understand your argument about machines. It's not a machine it's just a…

> You're making a lot of assertions about the nature of relationships and the definition of machines. I'll assume this is based on a philosophy that works for you Always. > But now you have set up a system of definitions where, for example, a good natured person, by definition, cannot be frustrated. > It kind of sounds like sophistry to me. It's just my lived experience. When I get frustrated I don't look for guilty…

There is overlap in the things that humans and machines can do. But to me, humans enjoy a special position regardless of what they can do or are doing.

If I'm using a ball-point pen (a machine) that's leaking ink, I'm just going to throw it in the trash.

If I'm using a hand-made slingshot made as a gift, and one of the straps breaks, I will endeavor to fix it.

To me, the chief difference between a fast food worker and a machine is that one is a human. To me, humans deserve more respect than machines simply because they are humans. If a human successfully tricks me into thinking they are not a human, then I will also erroneously afford them less respect than I intended to.

What you call the biggest value of ChatGPT is what I'd call its biggest threat.

Re: The user is visibly frustrated

#269

Post by dezork »

MaxikCZ wrote: post #10

> drop the human pretense entirely. Make the agent sound clinical, robotic Id pay to be able to reliably set LLMs to this mode, but ofc because LLMs are taught on corpus of HUMAN text, they always, sooner or later, return to the good old penpal mode. Also, in Claude Desktop app, I ask to edit a file, it complains it cant access files, I then realize im in Chat and not Code interface. Why cant such a smart machine fig…

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