> I want it to have empathy so that it can understand what I'm getting at when I occasionally ask a poorly worded question.

I'm not sure what empathy is supposed to buy you here, I think it would be far more useful for it to ask for clarification. Exposing your ambiguity is instructive for you.

Some recent studies have shown that LLMs might negatively impact cognitive function, and I would guess its strong intuitive sense of guessing what you're really after is part of it.