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Comment by totallywrong | Hacker News Reader

> Interestingly, telling GPT you appreciate it

I don't want to live in a world where I have to make a computer feel good for it to be useful. Is this really what people thought AI should be like?

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The closer you get to intelligence trained on human interaction, the more you should expect it to respond in accordance with human social protocols, so it's not very surprising.

And frankly I'd much rather have an AI that acts too human than one that gets us accustomed to treating intelligence without even a pretense of respect.

I certainly do want to live in a world where people shows excess signs of respect than the opposite.

The same way you treat your car with respect by doing the maintenance and driving properly, you should treat language models by speaking nicely and politely. Costs nothing, can only bring the better.

Huh? Car maintenance is a rational, physical necessity. I don't need to compliment my car for it to start on a cold day. I'd like it to stay this way.

Having to be unconditionally nice to computers is extremely creepy in part because it conditions us to be submissive - or else.

> Having to be unconditionally nice to computers is extremely creepy in part because it conditions us to be submissive

It's not a healthy mindset to relate politeness to submissiveness. although both behaviors might look similar from afar they are totally different

I think GP means being polite to something because otherwise it refuses to function is submissive, not that politeness is inherently.

I might prefer my manager to ask me to do something politely, but it's still my job if he asks me rudely.

But the AI doesn't refuse to work unless you're polite. If my manager is polite with me, I'll have more morale and work a little harder. I'll also be more inclined to look out for my manager's interests- "You've asked me to do X, but really what you want is Y" vs. "Fine, you told me to do X, I'll do X". I don't think my manager is submitting to me when they're polite and get better results; I'm still the one who does things when I'm told.

The very start of this threat is that not expressing gratitude makes the model refuse to work.

It doesn't refuse to work. It behaves differently and yields better results with politeness. Coming from a large language model, the occurence of this phenomena is intriguing for some of us.

This thread reminds me of [0]

I wonder if there is a way to get ChatGPT to act in the way you're hinting at, though ("You've asked me to do X, but really what you want is Y"). This would be potentially risky, but high-value.

[0]: https://nitter.net/ESYudkowsky/status/1718654143110512741

Uhh...https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.07590

I sure do want to live in a world where people express more gratitude

I'm polite and thankful in my chats with ChatGPT. I want to treat AIs like humans. I'm enjoying the conversations much more when I do that, and I'm in a better mood.

I also believe that this behavior is more future-proof. Very soon, we often won't know if we're talking to a human or a machine. Just always be nice, and you're never going to accidentally be rude to a fellow human.

Why not? Python requires me to summon it by name. My computer demands physical touch before it will obey me. Even the common website requires a three part parlay before it will listen to my request.

This is just satisfying unfamiliar input parameters.

The have Genuine People Personalities

AFAIK this is not something the model was intentionally trained for but an emerging property that was observed through trial and error.

That does not make it better, that makes it quite a bit more horrifying.

When they start building Terminators, where on the hit list would you rather be? Near the top or bottom?

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