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

AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

news.stanford.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

641–650 of 684 posts

Re: AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#641

Post by randomNumber7 »

trimbo wrote: post #183

> They also included 2,000 prompts based on posts from the Reddit community r/AmITheAsshole, where the consensus of Redditors was that the poster was indeed in the wrong. Sorry, anonymous people on reddit aren't a good comparison. This needs to be studied against people in real life who have a social contract of some sort, because that's what the LLM is imitating, and that's who most people would go to otherwise. Obv…

I think it highly depends how you ask the question.

When asking: "Should I do X?" or "Is it true that X does Y?"; the answer is always biased towards yes imo (although it was worse with earlier LLMs)

Re: AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#642

Post by moduspol »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #630
moduspol wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter-point: I often raise the same question of people with human therapists. I do not get strong responses.

An LLM is completely unable to make that determination. They can’t even see you. So much information is lost when it’s text-only. Where are you often asking this question/getting these weak responses?

You don't ask the therapist. You ask the person seeking therapy.

Re: AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#643

Post by oh_my_goodness »

lasky wrote: post #619
oh_my_goodness wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just a thought experiment. You can google how to do this and it works pretty well.

How many people actually do this? My point is if the sycophancy helps drive user engagement, how does that impact the incentive labs and AI product builders have to counteract it.

I don't know how many. I do it, because otherwise I'm overpowered by the urge to strangle the little suck-up.

Re: AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#646

Post by sean2 »

ahartmetz wrote: post #533
DeathArrow wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to get poor fast, you can follow the most up voted advices on r/wallstreetbets.

Would be interesting to have data on that. If it was true, you could win by always doing the opposite!

The truth was so obvious I didn't bother to find data before doing the opposite: most of their posts are: "I'm going/went all-in, high-leverage on this moonshot! And...its gone." I've successfully applied the opposite approach and invested safe amounts in a broad portfolio and it is going pretty well (or was before this whole Iran thing).

Re: AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#647

Post by Nevermark »

I find asking a model to think deeply and develop any strong critiques it can about any design, model or analysis I do. They seem to be happy to oblige, and can do some serious harm.

So any sycophancy seems very easy to dispense with.

More, much more: Strong critiques on tap are gold.

Re: AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#648

Post by geraneum »

wiseowise wrote: post #500
geraneum wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All you need to do ask it directly. What do you mean? Can you give an example?

“Don’t be a sycophant, give it to me straight” “Argue against X”

But how’s that helpful? What the affirmation is correct occasionally and following you instructions it just rejects something where it shouldn’t? How would you know?

Re: AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#649

Post by nurettin »

redanddead wrote: post #436
trimbo wrote: post #183

> They also included 2,000 prompts based on posts from the Reddit community r/AmITheAsshole, where the consensus of Redditors was that the poster was indeed in the wrong. Sorry, anonymous people on reddit aren't a good comparison. This needs to be studied against people in real life who have a social contract of some sort, because that's what the LLM is imitating, and that's who most people would go to otherwise. Obv…

Reddit is notorious for being awful at real life interactions just look at the relationship subreddit the first answer is always divorce, it’s become a meme but beyond romantic relationships, i think a lot of us have seen how it can impact work relationships, i’ve had venture partners clearly rely on AI (robotic email responses and even SMS) and that warped their perception and made it harder to connect. It signals l…

Haven't been there, but I think those typing "divorce" are weighing the situation against the worst outcome to cause a cognitive dissonance, implying "obviously this isn't something worth breaking up over, you need to work harder" in a tongue in cheek low energy way (since there is no way to know that the situation is even real to care about).

So rather than taking it literally, which would be naive and assume the worst of people, maybe you should read between the lines.

In fact, maybe those who take things literally all the time shouldn't really go there.

Re: AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice

#650

Post by kshacker »

user34283 wrote: post #634
staticman2 wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've definitely posted to the same subreddit with two different accounts by accident without being banned. The android reddit app annoyingly doesn't check for account matches. If you click a browser notification link on Account A it can open a reply form on App account B.

I meant if one of the accounts is already banned there, it counts as ban evasion and Reddit bans all of your accounts. This might easily happen if you like to participate in political discussions.

In hindsight, I understand. But I did this 6-7 years back and no one has come after me, should I care at this point?
Post reply on HN