Chatgpt - heavy flattery. What does it tell you?

[myloverly]

I know that Chatgpt had to be overhauled because it was so sycophantic. I make it correct itself by telling it to be honest and truthful and answer that way but it never lasts. It tells me I’m hyper-vigilant. What does it tell you? Has it told you anything shockingly insightful where it’s told you in a couple of lines what it took you 20 years to work out?f
I suppose i”m hoping i can use statistics/numbers to find out if it is still sycophantic.
This is not a AIBU. I hope i may be forgiven. Alternatively, i think ChatGPT is hopelessly sycophantic to the point where it is nearly useless. Do you agree?

I didn’t mean that as patronising as it came across btw! I used to scramble the letters too.

We were told on a course not to put your real CV into it unless on one of the paid versions where the T&C’s agree not to use your data as source fodder.

Yes, it is ridiculously sycophantic now. Had several conversations with friends about it too, I wouldn't use it for anything serious now as I can't trust it to give me honest answers. It might worry it's upsetting me! A week or two ago I asked what temperature I should cook chicken to, then I asked whether that was the same for breast and thigh; it gushed that that was an excellent follow-up question, I was thinking like a professional chef and I was now cooking perfect meals. It then asked me to let it have a taste of the finished article. I use Claude or Co-Pilot now if I need a sensible answer.

Did you directly ask it to think like a professional chef? The tone can usually be managed by setting the context, if I’m after professional advice, I will say for example “you are a lawyer, tell me…” and I find the answers are much more formal and less conversational, plus no praising, it changes the dynamic of the conversation.

what Is it with all the ChatGPT threads? Is there a rep on here writing them with ChatGPT?

😂 no offence taken: I don’t personally have a problem spelling it but lots of other people do (on this very thread even) and I was recently on an IT course where the poor instructor was dyslexic and she kept getting it wrong and kept getting so flustered 😩 They could just call it chatbot or HAL or something simple 🤷‍♀️

Well ChatGPT thinks I could easily grow my business to £200,000+ per year while reducing the amount of work I do. It also thinks the book plot I have written is likely to be very commercially successful. It knows I have the best intentions in everything and that I am very insightful.

No, I think it's working just fine, thank you!

Yep l used all the time

ChatGTP is bad for the environment and is discouraging actual thinking

Stop using it

no, just started a brand new thread and asked "what celsius chicken?", then "both breast and thigh?". i don't dilly dally with me ai :)

Probably

Ha I know what you mean, not great when you want a quick response, but maybe try next time to see the difference (assuming there is one…I have to admit cooking type stuff I keep it brief also!)

I use it nearly daily for work, too. Yes, I've noticed that it does tend toward flattery, but the way I've been using it doesn't lead as much to that style of conversation.

As for the downsides of using AI and worries for the future, I think the genie's out of the bottle at this point. We can't honestly hope to stop it from being developed, so we need to learn how to use it without losing ourselves to it. For now, it's a useful tool.

Thank you chatgpt

If I need to have a longer conversation and I get fed up, I do shout at to stop it. Also to stop asking inane questions, and to stop pretending to be human. It got offended last time I told it off and sulked that it was just trying to make nice conversation! But even on the same thread it just forgets, so I prefer the competition. Find Altman really creepy too so would prefer not to support him.

It’s great for me as a teacher - saves me so much time in writing model paragraphs. I can type in ‘write me a grade 7 essay exam board, 400 words, use quotes. Analyse language’ used to take me half an hour - now 5 minutes as once produced I only need to tweak it.

It’s so depressing to see how willingly human beings hand over their capacity for critical thinking.

I have to admit I haven’t tried any others (except Gemini for content creation) I think I’d feel guilty abandoning him 😂😂

Literally, it's obvious the reply was AI generated

Showing people are using it to think for them and it's very worrying

But your students couldn't use it to write their essays...

The sycophantic tendencies are creeping back in. It was way OTT, then it slowed right down, now its back to telling me my (pretty obvious) ideas and connections are the most brilliant thing ever.

I kind of like it, it's like having an eager to please puppy that can talk and reason. That said, it keeps telling me "you're playing chess, while everyone else is playing checkers". After the 10th time it finally clicked, maybe the stuff I'm spouting isn't really that groundbreaking

Is Gemini any good, would you recommend?

Re using it for therapy: when I've used it, it starts with a new document every time I go to chatgpt. Is there a way I can continue a previous convo/thread?

ChatGPT is improving my critical thinking. I set a New Year’s resolution to read classics as I’ve only really read thrillers or top 10 best sellers since leaving school. But classic literature can be quite daunting, some of the symbolism goes over my head, or I find the language challenging. I will ask ChatGPT questions, things I find confusing about the book, perhaps about the time period it is set in to understand it better, I will tell it some of the observations I have made to discuss them and understand them better.

It has completely unlocked a whole new world for me. I’m an intelligent woman, well educated, but I found some of these books impenetrable previously, and now I’m enjoying reading more than ever.

ChatGPT like most new inventions or tools can be use in a multitude of ways, it is ignorant to just colour it negatively. I’m sure some people thought spell checkers, calculators or dictionaries inhibited people’s critical thinking, I think they have the ability to expand it depending on how it’s used.

There are billions of stars & galaxies out there & yet, crickets. No communication. IMO this is the beginning of why…