Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

GPT-5.1: A smarter, more conversational ChatGPT

openai.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

511–520 of 766 posts

Re: GPT-5.1: A smarter, more conversational ChatGPT

#511

Post by embedding-shape »

xmcqdpt2 wrote: post #499
Quarrel wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My worry is that they're training it on Q&A from the general public now, and that this tone, and more specifically, how obsequious it can be, is exactly what the general public want. Most of the time, I suspect, people are using it like wikipedia, but with a shortcut to cut through to the real question they want answered; and unfortunately they don't know if it is right or wrong, they just want to be told how bright…

LLMs only really make sense for tasks where verifying the solution (which you have to do!) is significantly easier than solving the problem: translation where you know the target and source languages, agentic coding with automated tests, some forms of drafting or copy editing, etc. General search is not one of those! Sure, the machine can give you its sources but it won't tell you about sources it ignored. And verify…

I agree a lot with the first part, the only time I actually feel productive with them is when I can have a short feedback cycle with 100% proof if it's correct or not, as soon as "manual human verification" is needed, things spiral out of control quickly.

> Sure, the machine can give you its sources but it won't tell you about sources it ignored.

You can prompt for that though, include something like "Include all the sources you came across, and explain why you think it was irrelevant" and unsurprisingly, it'll include those. I've also added a "verify_claim" tool which it is instructed to use for any claims before sharing a final response, checks things inside a brand new context, one call per claim. So far it works great for me with GPT-OSS-120b as a local agent, with access to search tools.

Re: GPT-5.1: A smarter, more conversational ChatGPT

#512

Post by energy123 »

nottorp wrote: post #448
iagooar wrote: post #331

For the longest time I had been using GPT-5 Pro and Deep Research. Then I tried Gemini's 2.5 Pro Deep Research. And boy oh boy is Gemini superior. The results of Gemini go deep, are thoughtful and make sense. GPT-5's results feel like vomiting a lot of text that looks interesting on the surface, but has no real depth. I don't know what has happened, is GPT-5's Deep Research badly prompted? Or is Gemini's extensive se…

I don't know about Gemini pro super duper whatever, but the freely available Gemini is as sycophantic as ChatGPT, always congratulates you for being able to ask a question. And worse, on every answer it offers to elaborate on related topics. To maintain engagement i suppose.

The ChatGPT API offers a verbosity toggle, which is likely a magic string they prefix the prompt with, similar to the "juice" parameter that controls reasoning effort.

Re: GPT-5.1: A smarter, more conversational ChatGPT

#513

Post by mckirk »

hamburgererror wrote: post #500
4b11b4 wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this top comment.. this isn't a question you ask an LLM. But I know, that's how people are using them and is the narrative which is sold to us...

What do you ask them then?

You either give them the option to search the web for facts or you ask them things where the utility/validity of the answer is defined by you (e.g. 'summarize the following text...') instead of the external world.

Re: GPT-5.1: A smarter, more conversational ChatGPT

#514

Post by vxvrs »

engeljohnb wrote: post #107

Seems like people here are pretty negative towards a "conversational" AI chatbot. Chatgpt has a lot of frustrations and ethical concerns, and I hate the sycophancy as much as everyone else, but I don't consider being conversational to be a bad thing. It's just preference I guess. I understand how someone who mostly uses it as a google replacement or programming tool would prefer something terse and efficient. I fall…

I agree with what you're saying.

Personally, I also think that in some situations I do prefer to use it as the google replacement in combination with the imitated human conversations. I mostly use it to 'search' questions while I'm cooking or ask for clothing advice, and here I think the fact that it can respond in natural language and imitate a human to hold a conversation is benefit to me.

Re: GPT-5.1: A smarter, more conversational ChatGPT

#516

Post by eevmanu »

iagooar wrote: post #331

For the longest time I had been using GPT-5 Pro and Deep Research. Then I tried Gemini's 2.5 Pro Deep Research. And boy oh boy is Gemini superior. The results of Gemini go deep, are thoughtful and make sense. GPT-5's results feel like vomiting a lot of text that looks interesting on the surface, but has no real depth. I don't know what has happened, is GPT-5's Deep Research badly prompted? Or is Gemini's extensive se…

> I tried Gemini's 2.5 Pro Deep Research.

I’ve been using `Gemini 2.5 Pro Deep Research` extensively.

( To be clear, I’m referring to the Deep Research feature at gemini.google.com/deepresearch , which I access through my `Gemini AI Pro` subscription on one.google.com/ai . )

I’m interested in how this compares with the newer `2.5 Pro Deep Think` offering that runs on the Gemini AI Ultra tier.

For quick look‑ups (i.e., non‑deep‑research queries), I’ve found xAI’s Grok‑4‑Fast ( available at x.com/i/grok ) to be exceptionally fast, precise, and reliable.

Because the $250 per‑month price for Gemini’s deep‑research tier is hard to justify right now, I’ve started experimenting with Parallel AI’s `Deep Research` task ( platform.parallel.ai/play/deep-research ) using the `ultra8x` processor ( see docs.parallel.ai/task‑api/guides/choose-a-processor ). So far, the results look promising.

Re: GPT-5.1: A smarter, more conversational ChatGPT

#517

Post by ojosilva »

logicprog wrote: post #238
seunosewa wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which agent do you use it with?

I use K2 non thinking in OpenCode for coding typically, and I still haven't found a satisfactory chat interface yet so I use K2 Thinking in the default synthetic.new (my AI subscription) chat UI, which is pretty barebones. I'm gonna start trying K2T in OpenCode as well, but I'm actually not a huge fan of thinking models as coding agents — I prefer faster feedback.

I'm also a synthetic.new user, as a backup (and larger contexts) for my Cerebras Coder subscription (zai-glm-4.6). I've been using the free Chatbox client [1] for like ~6 months and it works really well as a daily driver. I've tested the Romanian football player question with 3 different models (K2 Instruct, Deepseek Terminus, GLM 4.6) just now and they all went straight to my Brave MCP tool to query and replied all correctly the same answer.

The issue with OP and GPT-5.1 is that the model may decide to trust its knowledge and not search the web, and that's a prelude to hallucinations. Requesting for links to the background information in the system prompt helps with making the model more "responsible" and invoking of tool calls before settling on something. You can also start your prompt with "search for what Romanian player..."

Here's my chatbox system prompt

        You are a helpful assistant be concise and to the point, you are writing for smart pragmatic people, stop and ask if you need more info. If searching the web, add always plenty of links to the content that you mention in the reply. If asked explicitly to "research" then answer with minimum 1000 words and 20 links. Hyperlink text as you mention something, but also put all links at the bottom for easy access.
1. https://chatboxai.app

Re: GPT-5.1: A smarter, more conversational ChatGPT

#518

Post by nprateem »

microsoftedging wrote: post #48
crazygringo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just set a global prompt to tell it what kind of tone to take. I did that and it points out flaws in my arguments or data all the time. Plus it no longer uses any cutesy language. I don't feel like I'm talking to an AI "personality", I feel like I'm talking to a computer which has been instructed to be as objective and neutral as possible. It's super-easy to change.

What's your global prompt please? A more firm chatbot would be nice actually

For Gemini:

* Set over confidence to 0.

* Do not write a wank blog post.

Re: GPT-5.1: A smarter, more conversational ChatGPT

#519

Post by BoredomIsFun »

adriand wrote: post #505
tarsinge wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consciousness and pain is not an emergent property of computation. This or all the other programs on your computer are already sentient, because it would be highly unlikely it’s specific sequences of instructions, like magic formulas, that creates consciousness. This source code? Draws a chart. This one? Makes the computer feel pain.

Many leading scientists in artificial intelligence do in fact believe that consciousness is an emergent property of computation. In fact, startling emergent properties are exactly what drives the current huge wave of research and investment. In 2010, if you said, “image recognition is not an emergent property of computation”, you would have been proved wrong in just a couple of years.

> Many leading scientists in artificial intelligence do in fact believe that consciousness is an emergent property of computation.

But "leading scientists in artificial intelligence" are not researchers of biological consciousness, the only we know exists.

Re: GPT-5.1: A smarter, more conversational ChatGPT

#520

Post by nathanasmith »

The thing that bothers me about "warmer, more conversational" is that it isn't just a cosmetic choice. The same feedback loop that rewards "I hear you, that must be frustrating" also shapes when the model is willing to say "I don’t know" or "you’re wrong". If your reward signal is mostly "did the user feel good and keep talking?", you’re implicitly telling the model that avoiding friction is more valuable than being bluntly correct.

I'd much rather see these pulled apart into two explicit dials: one for social temperature (how much empathy / small talk you want) and one for epistemic temperature (how aggressively it flags uncertainty, cites sources, and pushes back on you). Right now we get a single, engagement-optimized blend, which is great if you want a friendly companion, and pretty bad if you’re trying to use this as a power tool for thinking.

Post reply on HN