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Claude says “You're absolutely right!” about everything

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Re: Claude says “You're absolutely right!” about everything

#371
post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ChatGPT opened with a "Nope" the other day. I'm so proud of it. https://chatgpt.com/share/6896258f-2cac-800c-b235-c433648bf4...

Is that GPT5? Reddit users are freaking out about losing 4o and AFAICT it's because 5 doesn't stroke their ego as hard as 4o. I feel there are roughly two classes of heavy LLM users - one who use it like a tool, and the other like a therapist. The latter may be a bigger money maker for many LLM companies so I worry GPT5 will be seen as a mistake to them, despite being better for research/agent work.

LLMs definitely have personalities. And changing ones at that. gemini free tier was great for a few days but lately it keeps gaslighting me even when it is wrong (which has become quite often on the more complex tasks). To the point I am considering going back to claude. I am cheating on my llms. :D

edit: I realize now and find important to note that I haven't even considered upping the gemini tier. I probably should/could try. LLM hopping.

Re: Claude says “You're absolutely right!” about everything

#372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ChatGPT opened with a "Nope" the other day. I'm so proud of it. https://chatgpt.com/share/6896258f-2cac-800c-b235-c433648bf4...

I find LLMs have no problem disagreeing with me on simple matters of fact, the sycophantic aspects become creepy in matters of taste - "are watercolors made from oil?" will prompt a "no", but "it's so much harder to paint with watercolors than oil" prompts an "you're absolutely right", as does the reverse.

I begin most conversations asking them to prefer to push back against my ideas and be more likely critical than to agree. It works pretty well.

Re: Claude says “You're absolutely right!” about everything

#374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Example-based prompting is a good way to get specific behaviors. Write a system prompt that describes the behavior you want, write a round or two of assistant/user interaction, and then feed it all to the LLM. Now in its context it has already produced output of the type you want, so when you give it your real prompt, it will be very likely to continue producing the same sort of output.

I almost never use examples in my professional LLM prompting work. The reason is they bias the outputs way too much. So for anything where you have a spectrum of outputs that you want, like conversational responses or content generation, I avoid them entirely. I may give it patterns but not specific examples.

Yes, it frequently works "too well." Few-shot with good variance can help, but it's still a bit like a wish granted by the monkey's paw.

Re: Claude says “You're absolutely right!” about everything

#376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it unhealthy? If you just want a good word that you don't have in your life why should you bother another person if machine can do it?

Because it's a mirage. People want to be loved, but GPT-4o doesn't love them. It only creates an optical illusion of love.

People want the feelings associated with love. They don't care how they get it.

The advantage of "real" love, health wise, is that the other person acts as a moderator. When things start to get out of hand they will back away. Alternatives, like drugs, tend to spiral of out of control when an individual's self-control is the only limiting factor. GPT on the surface seems more like being on the drug end of the spectrum, ready to love bomb you until you can't take it anymore, but the above suggests that it will also back away, so perhaps its love is actually more like another person than it may originally seem.

Re: Claude says “You're absolutely right!” about everything

#377
post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that GPT5? Reddit users are freaking out about losing 4o and AFAICT it's because 5 doesn't stroke their ego as hard as 4o. I feel there are roughly two classes of heavy LLM users - one who use it like a tool, and the other like a therapist. The latter may be a bigger money maker for many LLM companies so I worry GPT5 will be seen as a mistake to them, despite being better for research/agent work.

We should all be deeply worried about gpt being used as a therapist. My friend told me he was using his to help him evaluate how his social interactions went (and ultimately how to get his desired outcome) and I warned him very strongly about the kind of bias it will creep into with just "stroking your ego" - There's already been articles on people going off the deep end in conspiracy theories etc - because the ai ke…

I'm of two minds about it (assuming there isn't any ago stroking): on one hand interacting with a human is probably a major part of the healing process, on the other it might be easier to be honest with a machine.

Also, have you seen the prices of therapy these days? $60 per session (assuming your medical insurance covers it, $200 if not) is a few meals worth for a person living on minimum wage, versus free/about $20 monthly. Dr. GPT drives a hard bargain.

Re: Claude says “You're absolutely right!” about everything

#378
post #9

Not Claude but ChatGPT - I asked it to pipe down on exactly that kind of response. And it did.

I've done this in my Claude settings, but it still doesn't seem that keen on following it: > Please be measured and critical in your response. I appreciate the enthusiasm, but I highly doubt everything I say is “brilliant” or “astute”, etc.! I prefer objectivity to sycophancy.

I wonder if asking it to respond in the style of Linus Torvalds would be an improvement.

Re: Claude says “You're absolutely right!” about everything

#379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious what Americans have to do with this, do you have any sources to back up your conjecture, or is this just prejudice?

> ... do you have any sources to back up your conjecture, or is this just prejudice? Let me guess, you consider yourself a progressive left democrat. Do I have any source for that? No, but I noticed a pattern where progressive left democrats ask for a source to discredit something that is clearly a personal observation or opinion, and by its nature doesn't require any sources. The only correct answer is: it's an opin…

> Let me guess, you consider yourself a progressive left democrat

I don't, and your comment is a mockery of itself.

Re: Claude says “You're absolutely right!” about everything

#380
post #371
post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that GPT5? Reddit users are freaking out about losing 4o and AFAICT it's because 5 doesn't stroke their ego as hard as 4o. I feel there are roughly two classes of heavy LLM users - one who use it like a tool, and the other like a therapist. The latter may be a bigger money maker for many LLM companies so I worry GPT5 will be seen as a mistake to them, despite being better for research/agent work.

LLMs definitely have personalities. And changing ones at that. gemini free tier was great for a few days but lately it keeps gaslighting me even when it is wrong (which has become quite often on the more complex tasks). To the point I am considering going back to claude. I am cheating on my llms. :D edit: I realize now and find important to note that I haven't even considered upping the gemini tier. I probably should…

Yeah, the heavily distilled models are very bad with hallucinations. I think they use them to cover for decreased capacity. A 1B model will happily attempt the same complex coding tasks as a 1T model but the hard parts will be pushed into an API call that doesn't exist, lol.
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