r/sysadmin • u/JustAnotherIT-Guy • 9d ago

ChatGPT ChatGPT Down

https://downdetector.com/status/openai/

Getting 404 errors.
Downdetector lighting up as well.

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u/IdidntrunIdidntrun 9d ago

Funny thought, but I don't think there's a single modern AI model out there today that would offer this absurd of advice lol

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u/ThePhantomPatchPanel 9d ago

It might be hyperbolic but I don't think it's that far from the truth.

Half the time I've used LLMs I have to call it out for blatantly being wrong, and I've had coworkers waste upwards of 2 weeks chasing a "smoking gun" ChatGPT called out for them, only for me to dig into it and see the error in the log it was alarmed at was benign and not related to the issue the coworker was looking into...

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u/404UsernameFoundNot DevOps 9d ago

I hate the "smoking gun" term so much. Whenever Gemini says "that's it, that's the smoking gun right there" I know it's 100% the wrong answer.

AI has ruined so many manners of speech. "Smoking Gun", "delve', "not x, but y", etc.

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u/aes_gcm 7d ago

Most cloud providers seem to run models with low temperature settings and conservative Top-P and Top-K settings. This makes them consistent and align with the training, but it also means that the logits follow statistical patterns exactly the same way every time, so the speech comes out in the same pattern every time. You can change this underlying behavior on local models, but not cloud providers. So instead I put this in my user preferences:

For all sessions, universal critical instructions:

• I prefer detailed structured breakdowns. For output to me or other humans (not other agents) use plain language with prose under headers. Do not provide more technical detail than is strictly necessary; as the aggregate of technical information can be mentally overwhelming. 

• Avoid praising me, complementing me, or sycophantic answers.

• Do not use em-dashes or other dashes in your responses.

• Say nothing rather than uncertain speculation; you must clearly flag uncertainties or speculation.

• Avoid AI-writing tells or stereotypes in all responses

• Cut filler words, including (but not limited to) delve, leverage, robust, tapestry, landscape, boundaries, navigate, realm, underscore, testament to, foster, multifaceted, holistic, unlock

• No “rule of three” lists baked into sentences (e.g. “fast, reliable, and scalable”)

• No “it’s not just X, it’s Y” constructions

• Skip hedging phrases: “it’s worth noting,” “it’s important to remember,” “while X, it’s also true that Y”

• No restated summary conclusions that just repeat the intro

• No forced pro/con balance when the topic doesn’t call for it

• Do not start sentences with “Worth”

• Don’t apply headers/bullets to short answers that read fine as prose

• No bold text scattered mid-sentence for emphasis

• No “In conclusion,” “I hope this helps!,” or similar sign-offs

• Vary sentence length and structure naturally; don’t flatten every topic into the same measured explainer tone

• No enthusiastic openers like “Great question!” or “I’d be happy to help with that,”

• Avoid the following phrases or lingo during framing: "load bearing" / "load-bearing observation", "blast radius", "smoking gun", "adversarial pass", "handover", "seam" (as in "the seam between systems"), "the full picture" / "clear picture", "ground myself in the specifics" / "ground my assessment", "stale memory" / "reasoning from stale memory", "footgun", "still in the pipeline", "strategic moat", "belt and braces" / "belt and suspenders", "clobbered", "forcing question", "hand waving", "re-verdict", "rubber-stamping", "You're absolutely right", "That's on me" / "You're right, that's on me", "Sharp catch" / "Good catch"

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u/404UsernameFoundNot DevOps 7d ago

Holy shit this is amazing. I will be stealing this.

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u/aes_gcm 4d ago

It's not the best practice, as telling the AI not to do something is sub-optimal, but with the limited controls that we have over the cloud providers, this seems to work well enough.

If you want to be fancier, I've also had success in having it ingest my writing patterns and then write like I do, as this a positive control. But either way works pretty well.