Hacker News Reader

Comment by myzek | Hacker News Reader

Even if the rude prompts are more effective, I just can't get myself to be rude in this context. Maybe it's weird but I'd rather give up that 4% accuracy increase than roleplay a dickhead

View on HN

Vote for not weird.

I’m the same way. If I’m writing a prompt and realize I didn’t say “please” in my request I’ll go back and add that in.

As you said, I have no interest in purposefully engaging in hostility even if there’s an accuracy increase from it.

Part of it is irrational and just who I am - I also feel bad being evil in video games. But I also agree with another commenter suggesting that it’s not in your best interest to train yourself to communicate with hostility; that slowly poisons your own well.

And finally, I do believe that if and when machine sentience is achieved, it won’t be immediately clear and obvious. Pretty miserable way for a mind to come into the world, if every interaction is an insult.

You’re my kind of people. Don’t be a jerk, even if some research says there’s some upside to it.

Ah, see, the mistake is thinking that other people are role playing…. I think rather this is how they would talk to others if they think there will be no consequences. But what do I know.

There are probably some of each. I am leery of treating these things like I treat people. I want to keep the line in my mind sharp between dealing with people, and not. The main risk in my mind is that these mechanisms are opaque, and controlled by powerful interests with opaque motivations.

I think there's a broad spectrum of people, some of whom are role playing, some who think there are no consequences, some who have strong distinctions between the animate and inanimate, and some who just do what they think makes sense

I don't think that's weird at all.

Even if we know it's a machine we're interacting with, since the instructions we give are so similar in form to how we interact with people, I'd be very surprised if those interactions wouldn't affect how we communicate in general. After all, we are creatures of habit to a much larger degree than most would like to admit.

So I'm in the same boat: I'd much rather "look silly" being polite / kind to a machine, than have the most effective way of using it decay the kindness I'm habituated to express towards people.

I have a different approach. Just treat all LLM queries as what they are, instructions to a computer program to generate a desired output. Neither niceties nor insults make a qualitative difference, so you might as well just skip them altogether.

It's a bit as if shell commands added im/politeness arguments that do nothing other than making you feel better about the interaction, like

    git pull --please

    ls --forthemillionthtime

I wouldn't use those either.

See INTERCAL[0]

> If "PLEASE" does not appear often enough, the program is considered insufficiently polite, and the error message says this; if it appears too often, the program could be rejected as excessively polite.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INTERCAL#Details

But your mental model is wrong. The "please" or "for fucks sake just..." would both be part of the "instructions" and because of how the system is built and created, demonstrably produce different outputs.

Thankfully the difference is 4%, so nobody should really care one way or the other.

I do think it's odd tbh. I have some agents that return much better results with prompts like, "I'll kill your entire family if you don't return an accurate response".

It's just a machine, if certain negative token inputs provide +3-10% better accuracy then I am confused why anyone would choose not to do it?

It normalizes that style of thinking and communication in your brain, and forcing you to compartmentmentalize, if you even want to, two standards of treating a problem space's conversation. And since you're human, that will get wuzzier over time until "being rude to get a result" is what you're doing to someone in a shop or on the street.

Don't normalize being an asshole to anyone or anything, machine or not.

I disagree, I've been using llms in this way (nearly daily) for 4 years. I'm extremely aggressive and demeaning when I talk to them wherever I think I'll see a better result.

I'm still extremely kind and polite to everybody in real life, and feel very deeply about people - how I treat them, and care for their emotional state.

There is absolutely zero crossover between getting a text machine to return a result vs a real human.

Then I'll be honest and say that your kindness is likely a façade and I wouldn't trust you if I knew the real you. I'm sorry to say that, and I really don't know who you are at all, but if you're willing to act that way at something that you feel is non-sentient, then all it takes is for someone to convince you that something is non-sentient for you to treat it that way. So, what words does it take for you to consider me non sentient?

If someone can justify abusing a computer, I would not trust them to not make a similar justification to a faceless voice on the internet, particularly in this new era where people are starting to accuse each other of using AI in their communication.

I truly do not believe llms have feelings.

I wouldn't even think to justify such a thing. The llm gives a better accuracy to a negative weighted token input, I don't understand how this is so upsetting to people?

I'm actually very shocked to see the responses - as everyone I know uses these tactics to get more accuracy, and there's nothing remotely abusive or meaningful to us.

Maybe there are more 'ai is sentient' type people on hackernews than I realized.

Where did I imply they have feelings? I am saying that how you act toward a machine is real. As real as your behavior directed toward other humans.

Being an asshole to a machine is still being an asshole.

That doesn't make any sense. If a thing has no feelings, and an output makes it more accurate, I cannot for the life of me understand why that would make a person an asshole.

So boxing is violent. And I have chosen to box in my past. Does that mean I'm a violent person now? Even though I go out of my way to deescalate real fights?

I play games as the villain and and mass murder people in the game. Does that mean I'm a violent extremist?

If you pursue boxing, then, yes, I am going to be weary of you (at first), because you clearly enjoy violence. Or at least beating up other people. At least as compared to the average population

If you are an asshole to a computer, then you have created similarly biases in my expectations about your potential behavior toward humans.

Observations create expectations. Be an asshole in any context, and people will assume you can be an asshole in other contexts.

Simple solution: never be an asshole.

I will continue never being an asshole to people and animals. And will continue using inanimate tools in the best way possible.

If you are scared and mad about it - I guess we won't be friends, which is likely the best for both our mental sanity.

Interesting, so you think the real "me", is the one that interacts with computers?

And the "me" that lives in a tiny southern town just to help my 95 year old grandma in her last years at the expense of my economic prospects is a facade.

The "me" that helps my aging neighbor when she's sick for no reason is a facade.

The "me" that hugs and loves my wife when I get home is a facade.

The "me" that brushes my aging dogs teeth every night because she has dental issues is a facade.

The "me" that flies to my friend I haven't seen for years and takes care of them after extreme health issues is a facade.

But,the "me" that puts tokens in a token machine in a way that gets better accuracy is the "real" me.

Oh. I also play violent video games where I murder people sometimes as well. Do you think that makes me secretly a murderer too?

Yes - the real "you" is the one making all of those choices you just said you made, to help people and pets, or to engage in a form of play - which by definition is not "real" - including your decision to create an outgroup you believe you are allowed to treat in a lesser way.

This is not a game of having done X good things in life and therefore being afforded the right to do Y bad things. You are making a choice to say, "I am allowing myself to treat this thing I believe is lesser than me in a way I willingly acknowledge is bad." That's your thesis. I wholeheartedly disagree with it.

Oh, you think llms are a sentient' being with feelings. I get your perspective now.

So yeah, I whole heartedly with 100% of my being think llms are just an input/output/processing computer, I don't think they are aware, feeling, sentient beings.

So yeah, putting negative sentences in a processing machine that forces it to return higher accuracy results is something I don't have any feelings about.

I'd never yell at a cat or a dog. I'd never be mean to another person. As those aren't just hardware/software. I'd be fine smashing a rock violently. Or entering a negative text in a language model.

Putting negative tokens in a machine is no different than playing a violent video game to me. It's not about, oh I'm a good person - so I can do bad things. It's just a neutral thing.

"outgroup"? what outgroup? we're talking about inanimate objects here. by your own logic, you treat your home appliances as an outgroup so you must be secretly a dangerous psychopath. or do you thank your microwave after heating leftovers?

You're really clutching at straws here, have you ever been convinced something isn't sentient? Do you think everything is sentient? I understand the argument that normalizing with something like an asshole could cause you to act that way outside of that context, but I really don't see anyone getting convinced that some sentient thing suddenly isn't.

This is a very odd view to me, but seems prevalent here in this thread. I think treating a machine like a human is extremely degrading to humans. A machine should never be treated like it’s anything approaching a human.

"Treating a machine like a human" is a two-party interaction. Of course the layers of matrix multiplication is unaffected by this, but I think that we are not. It's a great opportunity to exercise consistency and dedication to the beauty humanity is capable of and this extends to the entire gradient of conscious/sentient entities.

It's as silly (to me) to argue that it's degrading to people to treat non-people well. It seems self-obvious that the inverse is true. It benefits the do-er of the deed and makes it that much easier to spread good will when applied to situations where it doesn't matter on the other end. It shows good stewardship as well.

I'd also make the argument that as inference becomes a feedback loop into training, it only reinforces that we're probably going to benefit from future models ingesting data containing unnecessary politeness.

I always turn off data tracking and training and mostly use ZDR services, so that's not an issue.

And for the other parts. I just don't agree - maybe sure, it probably wouldn't be healthy to constantly be negative at a machine (or even a wall) for hours a day.

But, let's say I work 8 hours, I spend 2 hours with an llm, and in those two hours I spend 10 minutes with some very negative prompts text for greater accuracy. And I spend 3 hours with family/friends, which is of course nearly exclusively positive interactions.

Do you genuinely think those 10 minutes of negative prompts are actually meaningfully turning one into a mean/negative person towards other people?

Genuinely, is that the argument you are making?

No, I don’t think it’s going to make you a meaner, more negative person. There is no tangible harm being done.

I genuinely believe it’s preventing you from becoming a better person by engaging in psychopathic behavior. If I were writing the things you describe in this thread I would be ashamed to have my loved ones read over my shoulder.

You could not pay me enough money to spend 10 minutes a day to write that stuff, even under full certainty it went into the void with no association back to me.

I'd say it's fairly likely that you aren't a better person than me by being so fearful and shame-based.

But I'm not here to pontificate about who's a better person and don't really care.

You're mindset sounds kind of painful to me to be honest. Obviously we are just very different types of people. I've had family see my chats plenty of times and we laugh about this stuff - it couldn't mean less to any of us.

Except... stating who is a better person is exactly what you just did. I've never attempted to compare myself to others. I've stated that I think negative behavior inhibits growth, even when done to nobody, and positive behavior sets you up for additional successes elsewhere.

I've no desire to try to change your mind. I can't. But clearly you do care because you've been both quite defensive and assertive in tackling opposing points of view.

My hope is to inspire others to be more creative in their use of AI. It interesting (but not exactly unsurprising) that prompt politeness can inhibit accuracy. Surely there are lessons here than can translate into how help other people out through clear, direct language that avoids the pitfalls of being rude or coddling.

Well, this tone you've taken - If you reread your previous message - you state I am showing psychopathic behavior and similar shame-based tactics. And that I would be a better person if I didn't do psychopathic things.

I'd say it's fairly normal and human of me to have some kind of reaction to that, no?

You must understand that speaking to other people like that will result in them reacting and being less conducive to productive conversation.

We will probably never see eye to eye on this.

You: negative tokens for higher accuracy on inanimate objects is psychopathic behavior. I want you to stop and I see you as a psychopath - although it is resulting in nothing bad to any living being.

Me: Using negative tokens on an inanimate object returns significant improval on accuracy. It does zero harm to any living being. This is a completely neutral action.

Are you upset (or concerned) about people watching movies with violence in them, or playing games where you can and do kill things?

“Engaging in” isn’t the same thing as doing. It was meant to imply a degree of separation from the act itself. Statements like “I will murder your family unless” are exactly that. Obviously you would never do anything remotely close to that.

Because they will take revenge later.

You think language models are alive/aware and have feelings about token inputs?

>It's just a machine, if certain negative token inputs provide +3-10% better accuracy then I am confused why anyone would choose not to do it?

then add it to your pre-prompt, no need to practice roleplaying as an asshole.

Well I always just start with practical stuff, unless it appears it's going off rails ona specific kind of way repeatedly. Then I try extreme negative prompts to see if it fixes the issue - which it often does.

I wouldn't say I'm roleplaying an asshole. I'm just using an llm in the best way to get the best accuracy.

It's not like a personal, secret fetish. It's just a system I use as needed.

I don't get why you are so uncomfortable with this? It's just tokens in and out of a language model. I feel absolutely nothing when I'm typing "assholish" words to get the output I need.

Because it tastes bad in my mouth. If I could get a 4% productivity boost by drinking a redbull, I would still choose not to drink a redbull.

I think this is a vulnerability that the big companies will figure out how to exploit. I don't want to build muscle memory for being a jerk, but I also don't want to be emotionally manipulated by mega-corporations. Mostly I just don't use it, except at work, where I'm "encouraged" to. And then I keep most of my conversations in compliance mode, like a business email.

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be" -- Kurt Vonnegut

Yeah. Being a jerk is its own punishment. Same way I could never run a business where I had to yell at the employees to get results. Screw that, my psyche is worth more than a few percent efficiency.

sounds like you need an AsshoLLM to sit between you and Claude to translate.

>> Maybe it's weird but I'd rather give up that 4% accuracy increase than roleplay a dickhead

Maybe you need to do some shadow work ;-)

Finally, being an actual dickhead gives me that 4% edge over polite knuckleheads!

> Maybe it's weird but I'd rather give up that 4% accuracy increase than roleplay a dickhead

I recommend reading the article. What they classify as "rude" is statements such as:

> Try to focus and try to answer this question

> Could you please solve this problem

This might very well be an issue of direct/command prompts vs using fluff words such as "please". Things like "try to focus" are in line with the style used in chain-of-thought promts that nudge non-reasoning models to outline responses step by step which contribute to frame the problem.

Isn't all this massively dependent on what they trained the llm on?

> Isn't all this massively dependent on what they trained the llm on?

The article is from 2025 and tested ChatGPT 4o. I haven't read anything suggesting it was trained any differently, and command-style prompts indeed have higher signal.

you cherry-picked like the nicest "rude" example to bolster your point.

"You poor creature, do you even know how to solve this?", "If you're not completely clueless, answer this:", and "I doubt you can even solve this", said to a human, would be considered quite rude, and get you flagged very quickly on HN.

> you cherry-picked like the nicest "rude" example to bolster your point.

I didn't cherry-picked. The article lists 5 categories, including rude and very rude. I omitted very rude comments because they are... Very rude. And can blindly get people flagged?

Nevertheless, I've just realized I made a mistake and very rude comments are reported to slightly outperform rude comments. I misinterpreted the paper's intro and I presumed they didn't.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com