Classic: "Do those jeans fit me?"

You can either choose truthfulness or empathy.

Being empathic and truthful could be: “I know you really want to like these jeans, but I think they fit such and so.” There is no need empathy to require lying.

	▲	syncmaster913n 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		> “I know you really want to like these jeans, but I think they fit such and so.” This statement is empathetic only if we assume a literal interpretation of the "do those jeans fit me?" question. In many cases, that question means something closer to: "I feel fat. Could you say something nice to help me feel better about myself right away?" > There is no need empathy to require lying. Empathizing doesn't require lying. However, successful empathizing often does.

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impossiblefork 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Empathy would be seeing yourself with ill-fitting jeans if you lie.

The problem is that the models probably aren't trained to actually be empathetic. An empathetic model might also empathize with somebody other than the direct user.