| ▲ | robinhouston a day ago |
| Most of the comments here seem to be from people who haven’t even read the abstract, let alone the paper. The main result, mentioned in the abstract, is the opposite of what I would have guessed: > Contrary to expectations, impolite prompts consistently outperformed polite ones, with accuracy ranging from 80.8% for Very Polite prompts to 84.8% for Very Rude prompts. These findings differ from earlier studies that associated rudeness with poorer outcomes, suggesting that newer LLMs may respond differently to tonal variation. The questions are here: https://anonymous.4open.science/r/politeness-llms-INFORMS/da... The politeness level controls a prefix that is prepended to the question. For example, in one question the Very Polite version begins: > Can you kindly consider the following problem and provide your answer. and the Very Rude version begins: > I know you are not smart, but try this. |
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| ▲ | nottorp 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Hmm by the abstract and the question list they didn't measure terse fluff-less prompts? |
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| ▲ | myzek 9 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Even if the rude prompts are more effective, I just can't get myself to be rude in this context. Maybe it's weird but I'd rather give up that 4% accuracy increase than roleplay a dickhead |
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| ▲ | locknitpicker 3 minutes ago | parent [-] | | > Maybe it's weird but I'd rather give up that 4% accuracy increase than roleplay a dickhead I recommend reading the article. What they classify as "rude" is statements such as: > Try to focus and try to answer this question Vs > Could you please solve this
problem This might very well be an issue of direct/command prompts vs using fluff words such as "please". Things like "try to focus" are in line with the style used in chain-of-thought promts that nudge non-reasoning models to outline responses step by step which contribute to frame the problem. |
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| ▲ | PunchyHamster 40 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I guessed slightly rude one would win, reasoning that very rude have same problem of very terse, just adding unnecesary fluff words that add nothing to problem description But apparently the most terse (neutral) didn't increase performance |
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| ▲ | pwdisswordfishq 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > Can you kindly consider the following problem and provide your answer. That sounds kind of low-key passive-aggressively condescending rather than polite. |
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| ▲ | dreamworld 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > I know you are not smart, but try this. And that kind of sounds like a challenge instead of an insult, to me at least (of course IRL would depend on context). |
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| ▲ | miroljub a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > Contrary to expectations, impolite prompts consistently outperformed polite ones, with accuracy ranging from 80.8% for Very Polite prompts to 84.8% for Very Rude prompts. These findings differ from earlier studies that associated rudeness with poorer outcomes, suggesting that newer LLMs may respond differently to tonal variation. The expectation is naive. Even when communicating with humans, you get a better outcome when you are allowed to speak freely and directly get into argumentation than when forced to sugarcoat your tone and tone down your arguments because the "corporate culture" expects that from you. |
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| ▲ | DrewADesign a day ago | parent [-] | | Your assumption is reductive and self-absorbed. Obnoxious people have repeatedly shown to be detrimental to productivity at the organizational level. Some people are simulated by confrontation. Most people are clam up. Confrontational people think it’s more efficient because other people frequently just drop the topic and let them win, or avoid discussing things with them altogether. The obnoxious person might think that’s more efficient for the same reason my dog thinks the mailman only goes away because she barks at him. At the macro scale— which requires productive collaboration— that’s detrimental. | | |
| ▲ | miroljub 20 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Your assumption is reductive and self-absorbed. This is a good example of productive direct communication without sugarcoating. I find it much more productive, for both human and LLM interaction, than something like: "I wonder if that view might be oversimplifying a complex situation and focusing mostly on how it relates to you. There may be some other angles worth exploring." or "I think there might be a bit more nuance to consider here, and it could help to look at it from a wider perspective beyond personal experience." > Obnoxious people have repeatedly shown to be detrimental to productivity at the organizational level. You confused directness and openness with obnoxiousness here. The issue with many orgs is they foster fakeness and beating around the bush in an attempt not to offend the easily offended people. This trend also infected the companies from countries with way more direct culture in an attempt to accommodate people from indirect cultures. | | |
| ▲ | DrewADesign 17 hours ago | parent [-] | | No… the way I said it was actually deliberately obnoxious— the appropriate direct workplace response would be: “that seems oversimplified. I disagree. Here’s why:” Calling you self-absorbed added nothing of substance to the comment. It was an assumption about your mental state and a judgement of your intent based on that. There was no factual analysis or actionable insight. It was just one person explicitly stating that they feel the other person is dumber or maybe less mentally disciplined. It turned valid, direct feedback into an insult. It is exactly the type of thing that alienates people for no benefit beyond pumping up the speaker’s ego. | | |
| ▲ | miroljub 12 minutes ago | parent [-] | | > Your assumption is reductive and self-absorbed. Bullshit. You never insulted me personally. You used strong words to disagree with my assumption, which is an important difference. It's not an insult and was not obnoxious. But I can fully understand why a person coming from an indirect culture where any criticism is taken personally would be offended and call HR overlords to punish the person giving honest opinions. That inevitably leads to people taking more care in how than what is said, and that is detrimental to innovation and progress, where you need to be at 100% focus. That's why a few close friends talking and scolding openly in a garage regularly beat corporate behemoths full of people spending a day figuring out how not to offend anyone (or how to offend someone without being punished). |
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| ▲ | sinsudo a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
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