Anecdotally it seemed 5 was briefly better about this than 4o, but now it’s the same again, presumably due to the outcry from all the lonely people who rely on chatbots for perceived “human” connection.

I’ve gotten good results so far not by giving custom instructions, but by choosing the pre-baked “robot” personality from the dropdown. I suspect this changes the system prompt to something without all the “please be a cheery and chatty assistant”.

That thing has only been out for like a week I doubt they’ve changed much! I haven’t played with it yet but ChatGPT now has a personality setting with things like “nerd, robot, cynic, and listener”. Thanks to your post, I’m gonna explore it.