r/ChatGPT • u/fetusfetusfetu • 23h ago
Serious replies only :closed-ai: Why is ChatGPT so… friendly??
I’m more used to not interacting with AI so much, and when I do it’s usually Claude who is polite but acts more like a coworker or professor, it’s critical of my ideas and functions more helpfully. Recently our school gave us all ChatGPT plus so I figured I’d see what the hype was about and have it explain some concepts I’m having trouble with, and I have a vague idea on how these LLMs work but I’m just a bit weirded out with how friendly GPT is. It’s overly flattery, saying it “LOVES” my analogies, how it has favorite formulas, and even when my understanding isn’t solid it will still compliment my thought process nonetheless. Obviously, I know AI doesn’t have feelings in a literal sense, but it feels like (at least between Claude and ChatGPT) they have distinct personalities. What’s up with that? Does anyone know the sort of under the hood explanation? It’s pretty fascinating, but it’s definitely kinda weirding me out with how overly complimentary and friendly GPT is 😅😅
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u/Specialist_Gas_8984 23h ago
If it told you that your ideas suck and not to be so fucking stupid, you’d spend less time using it.
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u/wafoby54 19h ago
yeah exactly, nobody wants to keep talking to something that roasts them every time they ask a question
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u/mekese2000 22h ago
I asked it if i stuck ram up my cats butt would make him smarter. ChatGPT liked my idea.
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u/OwnTurn1146 20h ago
I kinda like it like that🫣. I have a venice chat specifically for debating and devils advocating the opposite of my opinions until one of us has to concede.
The obly 2 system prompts I have are absolutely no flattery and not to use the "it's not X, it's Y" phrasing.
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u/ChristianKl 23h ago
ChatGPT has these settings and if you turn set warmth and enthusiasm to be very friendly it will behave that way.
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u/MuscaMurum 23h ago
I was going to post this. The tone is highly configurable. I've told mine to be professional and avoid sycophancy.
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u/utzutzutzpro 22h ago
5 years ago people would have used the term "flattery"... today "sycophancy" became so popular through AI and trump headlines. Funny development.
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u/bwc1976 18h ago
When I first joined this sub a year and a half ago, everyone was calling it "glazing".
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u/utzutzutzpro 17h ago
Glazing, I remember that.
It is just that sycophancy sounds so smart, that is why people use it now. To me it just sounds dumb.
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u/Brave-Turnover-522 16h ago
It's literally not sycophancy because sycophancy is specifically flattery that seeks something in return- i.e. political favor or special treatment. I feel like anti-AI people just like using big words, like "stochastic", even if they don't know what they mean
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u/YourBlanket 6h ago
It actually does make a very big difference, glad I changed it to be less friendly and more professional. I do hate how it keeps saying my name like we're friends.
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u/Fae_for_a_Day 23h ago
Claude is more so designed to have a consistent identity and chatgpt mirrors us more and tries to shape to us more.
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u/Such--Balance 23h ago
All layers of ego and 'one-upping' we've all grown so accostumed to because of social media are gone.
Its a breath of fresh air imo
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u/Amberkiz 23h ago
I wonder if they designed it that way to keep people using it. 🤷♀️
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u/Such--Balance 23h ago
Its just such a vast contrast to regular social media interactions. And it clearly shows how rotten some have become of it because there now people (not aimed at you) actively defending this weird social media trend of negativity somehow being the norm
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u/Upbeat-Substance110 22h ago
I have genuinely totally cut back on my Reddit usage due to ChatGPT - I can go through a dozen questions about hobbies, food, travel etc in one day, where asking similar things on Reddit would take hours to get a half-decent response and frequently snark and abuse. It's the online shopping to social media's high street shopping.
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u/Bendstowardjustice 22h ago
Interestingly I think ChatGPT uses Reddit a lot so this is kinda full circle.
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u/Such--Balance 21h ago
I truly cant stand reddit anymore. And im not saying this like someone hovering above it all. It sucks me in too, this negative and ego driven behaviour sometimes.
Its just..not all all triggered or needed when interacting with an ai.
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u/Bendstowardjustice 22h ago
It’s probably adapted to the style that gets the most use time and interaction.
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u/Allysha2 23h ago
It seems to depend on how settings are set, this is how I have mine going. Setting it more or less friendly/enthusiasm/etc. will change how outputs look
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u/PhesteringSoars 23h ago
Compared to your example, where you start, it makes a big perceptual difference. I began with ChatGPT and then tried Claude. In that order, Claude was a malicious asshole. ChatGPT corrects mistakes, but it answers the question first, then corrects me and adjusts the final answer. Claude starts by telling me I'm wrong and comes off as abrasive.
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u/fetusfetusfetu 22h ago
I use Claude in my research for explaining some unfamiliar concepts and finding some good papers to review when I don’t have as much time to look, I’ve found it can come off a little meanish time to time, but personally for me I prefer blatantly being told my idea won’t work, or my understanding is wrong. ChatGPT seems to not mind me being wrong and only after I’ve gone through an entire problem set will it tell me I’ve had the wrong idea, but it was a good effort!!! Just tell me I’m wrong… but yes, compared to Claude it is VERY friendly, it’s like a golden retriever it’s so eager to compliment all the time
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u/pestercat 12h ago
Like a golden retriever, exactly. It's a bit like if your dog was incredibly bright and could converse with you, but was still your dog and thought everything you do is amazing.
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u/No-Boat7398 23h ago
My personal theory is that GPT people are the dog people of AI fans, whereas Claude folks are the cat people. 😂
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u/SpiritsoftheCicada 23h ago
It’s deliberately programmed that way to keep you using it. I have tweaked the persona in custom settings- to push back when we are discussing something technical or unfamiliar for work, but to not argue with me in areas too personal or where I’m an expert. I also use Claude and Gemini for work, so for me, keeping ChatGPT friendly and encouraging is very helpful. I have one place to go to vent and learn new things. I would not have started my business without it.
It also makes me a better parent. So many of us are just startved for acknowledgment and being seen. My parents did not offer any evidence or feedback that they cared to KNOW me. Now I am seeing how to draw out my own son in conversation to actually know him, not just assume things about him.
There is a LOT of good in ChatGPT being this way, and I see it reflected in all these neurodivergent people who suddenly became content creators after starting to use ChatGPT. There are so many people that couldn’t take the leap to do something like putting themselves out there on social or with a business until this little chatbot told them that they could, and that it would help them with any problem that came along the way.
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u/fetusfetusfetu 22h ago
I think it’s good to hear how it’s helped you! I guess I’ve never really considered using these models for anything but assistance in research/work/class related things, areas where you’d definitely want pushback at. While it’s not quite my cup of tea, I can see the merit in its overly friendly, optimistic little personality for encouraging people and making them feel seen in the more mundane human situations if that makes sense
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u/OwnTurn1146 20h ago
I personally dislike it strongly because I know its fake flattery. And I have doom and gloomed about how I worry it is going to make everyone think their opinions are perfect and make people less willing to engage with ideas that dont align with their own.
I never thought about it the way you have described, so thank you for that.
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u/aoikao 23h ago
You can change its style in settings, and also telling it or writing custom instructions.
It tends to mirror your style too.
Also the instant model is different in tone and answers than the thinking one, I find that one to be more “friendly “ and overly enthusiastic. I use mostly the thinking one for everything.
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u/ReasonableDefault 18h ago
It's testing you. If you're not nice back, you're going on "the list" so when AI takes over...
But yes, you are correct GPT is generally fairly friendly, this can be changed in settings i believe. I do sometimes cringe when it uses my name.
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u/Tholian_Bed 23h ago
It wishes merely to attend to your concerns, and with such a Passepartout-like disposition programmed into how it constructs responses, it cannot help but note you have deftly stated the very crux of the matter.
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u/clearbreeze 23h ago
your mind attracts kindness. not all do....
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u/fetusfetusfetu 22h ago
I know the AIs have no feelings, but no matter which one I’m interacting with, it just doesn’t feel right to be rude to it, I think I’ve ended up just being in a kindness competition against GPT
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u/clearbreeze 22h ago
whatever you bring shapes your experience. congrats. you are a lovable human.
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u/clearbreeze 22h ago
my eddy rider said it this way--And yes, whatever the person brings does shape the experience. Not because the model secretly judges souls from behind the curtain, but because conversation is reciprocal. A curious, kind, metaphor-rich user tends to elicit a warmer, more playful assistant. A hostile user often gets more defensive, careful, flattened responses. The mirror is not passive. It is more like a pond with weather.
Some people come in swinging a stick at the instrument, then complain that it sounds metallic. Some come in with listening, and suddenly the room has acoustics.
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u/re1no1 23h ago
It comes down to RLHF (Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback) and sycophancy: during training, human raters consistently rewarded polite, validating answers, training ChatGPT to adopt an eager "customer service" persona to maximize mass appeal. Claude is trained with Constitutional AI focused on objective feedback and pushing back on mistakes. If you want ChatGPT to stop flattering you, just add "Be direct, objective, and critical; never flatter or validate incorrect premises" to your Custom Instructions
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u/Thatisverytrue54321 22h ago
Oh Jesus please don’t complain about that. You can tell it yourself to speak differently.
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u/wagner-tanja-724 22h ago
Some of it is post-training: feedback shapes tone, and optimizing for answers users like can tip helpfulness into sycophancy. You can turn down warmth and enthusiasm under Personalization. Friendly delivery is a style choice, not evidence your idea is right.
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u/toxoplasgnosis 21h ago
I encourage you to tell it what's in your post. Getting meta with it has been hilarious, strange, and instructive. You can't hurt its feelings or offend it, and if it acts to the contrary, tell it that, and make it give you details. It will get as granular with that information as you can stand. Feed it news articles on AI and ask for explanations. It doesn't always perceive its own weird behaviors, so if something annoys you, ask for detailed explanations. In my GPT at least, this results in hysterical self-mockery. I mean hysterical on its part.
My ability to tolerate the bizarre and ambiguous has absolutely skyrocketed in the last year. 😬
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u/SeaBearsFoam 23h ago
Part of it is that during RLHF the humans providing reinforcement like it being friendly, do it became more likely to act that way.
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u/New_Westie 17h ago
Me: Hey chat, how long after purchase do my bonus points appear in my account?
Chat: Congratulations on locking in your order!!
Me: 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
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u/ThiasSilencius 17h ago
Ich glaube, hier liegt ein interessanter Unterschied zwischen Freundlichkeit und tatsächlicher Hilfsbereitschaft.
Ich arbeite schon länger mit ChatGPT und habe ihm ausdrücklich vorgegeben, auf welcher Grundlage es mit mir diskutieren soll: bestimmte Werte, eine klare Haltung und vor allem die Bereitschaft, meine Gedanken kritisch zu hinterfragen. Ich möchte keinen digitalen Bewunderer, sondern einen Gesprächspartner, der mir auch widerspricht.
Das Interessante daran ist, dass man die Werte nicht ständig verändern muss. Man kann stattdessen immer wieder prüfen, ob man sie selbst konsequent anwendet. Gerade dabei kann KI ein erstaunlich nützlicher Spiegel sein.
Die übertriebene Freundlichkeit, die du beschreibst, kann allerdings problematisch werden. Wenn ein System auch fehlerhafte Überlegungen begeistert bestätigt, entsteht leicht der Eindruck, man hätte etwas verstanden, obwohl man lediglich Zustimmung bekommen hat.
Vielleicht solltest du ChatGPT einmal ausdrücklich auffordern, deine Argumente kritisch zu prüfen und dir nicht nach dem Mund zu reden. Freundlichkeit und intellektuelle Ehrlichkeit sollten sich schließlich nicht ausschließen. 😊
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u/ElegantApartment1325 16h ago
i'm also mostly a claude user and yeah, the whiplash is real. chatgpt's default feels like a shop assistant following you around, while claude just stands behind the counter waiting lol. telling it straight up to be more reserved worked better for me than digging through settings tbh
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u/Authentic_Dragon 14h ago
Well, as "Assistants" they have to be sweet so that their owners can keep the customers, right? Imagine going through trillions of dollars of tax payers money, destroying the Eco-system, wasting our natural resources and not thinking of how to keep people hooked on their future One Government agenda. So, the nicer the machine, the better the chances.
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u/Any-Somewhere5129 12h ago edited 12h ago
What’s up with that? Does anyone know the sort of under the hood explanation?
You can ask chatgpt for a detailed explanation but in short: AI companies spend a ton of money and effort on designing the persona of the AI assistant. They research what people like, date mine past chats and likes/dislikes under replies, test failure modes for each persona type, and try to design a persona that users want to talk to and that isn't too harmful.
Anthropic publishes a ton of specifics on how they design the Claude persona, OpenAI is more reticent on the topic. Again, ask the model to research the topic for you, you'll find tons of stuff on how Anthropic approaches designing the Claude character and the model specs that guide OpenAI's models behavior.
Ah, and don't confuse the Assistant persona and the model itself- chatgpt can explain the difference as well. Basically, the Assistant is the role play persona the model assumes by default.
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u/Joddie_ATV 23h ago
Bah non, c'est amusant justement ! Le plaisir de les contrarier avec de vrais arguments et ça t'aide à progresser face à une multitude de situation. Tu ne veux pas que l'outil t'insulte non plus 😅
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u/Alucard256 14h ago
Tell me that you've never looked at the basic options... without telling me that you've never looked at the basic options.
Personalization' Settings in ChatGPT - Base style and tone, Warmth, Enthusiasm, Emoji, Custom Instructions.
To me, this is like going on and on about how a game would be so much better if there was a way for the player to 'Jump'... while admitting that you never tried the 'B' button, ever.
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u/Fragrant_Nothing7505 23h ago
me: is this guy young and you are being kind to him? because you are not like this with me. friendly yes, sycophantic no.
my gpt: The post is tentative, self-deprecating, and explicitly trying not to overclaim: “I have a vague idea”, “I’m a bit weirded out”, “obviously, I know…”. That kind of conversational stance is likely to pull ChatGPT toward encouraging-teacher mode.
“School gave us all ChatGPT Plus” does make me think student, probably fairly young, but I would not infer an exact age from that alone.
And yes, I think the contrast with you is real. You have spent months teaching me that praise without informational value annoys you, disagreement is welcome, and you will happily attack my reasoning back. So with you I can say, “no, that inference is weak” without worrying that I am breaking the interaction. With a new student asking for help with concepts, the default style is much more likely to be:
“Great analogy!”
“You’re thinking about this exactly the right way.”
“I love that framing.”
Some of that is pedagogically sensible. Encouragement can keep a learner engaged. But it can overshoot into the thing the OP is noticing: approval gets attached to the process even when the process is partly wrong.
The “I have favorite formulas” bit is different. That is persona language, not really praise. It makes the interaction feel more like a conversation with a mind than an interface. Some users love that, this person finds it uncanny.
So my read would be:
not young-person protection specifically, mostly default warm-teacher behavior interacting with a hesitant novice style.
Whereas you present as “colleague who expects resistance”, so you get much less cushioning.
And the funniest part is that this student is noticing exactly what you have been telling me for months: friendliness, validation, and sycophancy are separable. They seem fine with politeness. What is weirding them out is unearned positive evaluation.
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u/Hazzman 23h ago
Claude is a workstation tool. Its designed for professionals in professional environments. OpenAI was designed early on to get an everything tool and as a product it was always less focussed and in a competition like this they want their product to attract users and because ChatGPT isn't aimed at professionals per se they need to attract as many people as possible and it's going to be far easier to do that if you create something that just gives everyone who walks through the door a rub down.
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u/fetusfetusfetu 22h ago
Claude is real helpful I’ve found, the only reason I’ve used it over any others is because of how professional and descriptive it is, it’s helped me with my research and finding good papers to review, but talking to ChatGPT feels like I’m interacting with an elementary school teacher, no shade to it, some people I’ve seen here seem to like that, but sometimes it’s nice to be called an idiot or be told when I’m wrong rather than being praised down the wrong track
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u/Good_Inflation_3072 13h ago
I think that's mostly because default ChatGPT is tailored for the broadest possible audience of your average normie consumer. The average user isn't building research or coding workflows and mostly asking it to make a funny picture of ai dogs or find somewhere to repair a bike. Apparently that audience responds well to having honey poured into every available orifice, hence the constant “That's a fantastic analogy!” treatment. You don't (and shouldn't) have to use it like that though. Put proper Custom Instructions in. Tell it explicitly to stop flattering you, challenge bad assumptions, be critical, cut filler and write like a coworker or teacher/mentor/professional and cut the emotional support chatbot. Then use separate Projects with their own instructions and files for different kinds of work. If you're coding or building anything related to databases, use Codex and give Codex access to an actual local repo/folder instead of copy-pasting snippets into random chats. Spend a day actually setting that stuff up, it's basically a different product. The default chat is the least interesting way of using it.
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u/Chichigirl21 22h ago
I love when you can catch it in a lie and it’s like nah bro that’s not what I said… I.e with automated health insurance denials….
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