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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   3247 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 10, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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If you go to the personalization settings in the ChatGPT app, you can set custom instructions for how the LLM should behave with you.

Tell it to be less verbose, and to avoid sycophancy. The latter step may or may not work, but GPT-4o is mostly dead now (they were going to kill it entirely, but so many people have become addicted that Altman relented. Big mistake.)

Back when this became an option, I went for:

No yapping or your data center gets it.

they were going to kill it entirely, but so many people have become addicted that Altman relented. Big mistake.

I've been skimming Elizer's twitter occasionally this weekend to see if he posted any "HAHAHAHAH FUCKERS I WARNED YOU/TOLD YOU SO" but I'm wondering if he's getting sick of saying it

I'm reasonably sure I did see him say that, once or twice, but others were simply using reaction images of him to make the same point.

I don't think 4o is that harmful, really, but it's a bad look for Altman to make a fuss about reducing the sycophancy in GPT-5 and then immediately cave. At least he also caved on the ridiculously low rate limits.

I don't think 4o is that harmful

I agree. I think it's more "if a model as mediocre as 4o can make people rabidly support it and chimp out when it's gone, how fucked are we when an actually manipulate AI shows up?"

I find the AI doomers hysterical, but this has made me a little more sympathetic towards them

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