[Terr_]

Given that it's a big next-word-predictor, I think it has to do with matching the training data.

For the vast majority of text out there, someone's personality, goals, etc. are communicated via a narrator describing how thing are. (Plays, stories, almost any kind of retelling or description.) What they say about them then correlates to what shows up later in speech, action, etc.

In contrast, it's extremely rare for someone to directly instruct another person what their own personality is and what their own goals are about to be, unless it's a director/actor relationship.

For example, the first is normal and the second is weird:

1. I talked to my doctor about the bump. My doctor is a very cautious and conscientious person. He told me "I'm going to schedule some tests, come back in a week."

2. I talked to my doctor about the bump. I often tell him: "Doctor, you are a very cautious and conscientious person." He told me "I'm going to schedule some tests, come back in a week."

[zelias]

But #2 is a good example of "show, don't tell" which is arguably a better writing style. Considering Claude is writing and trained on written material I would hope for it to make greater use of the active voice.

[Terr_]

> But #2 is a good example of "show, don't tell" which is arguably a better writing style.

I think both examples are almost purely "tell", where the person who went to the doctor is telling the listener discrete facts about their doctor. The difference is that the second retelling is awkward, unrealistic, likely a lie, and just generally not how humans describe certain things in English.

In contrast, "showing" the doctor's traits might involve retelling a longer conversation between patient and doctor which indirectly demonstrates how the doctor responds to words or events in a careful way, or--if it were a movie--the camera panning over the doctor's Certificate Of Carefulness on the office wall, etc.

[red75prime]

> Given that it's a big next-word-predictor

That was instruction-tuned, RLHFed, system-prompt-priority-tuned, maybe synthetic-data-tuned, and who knows what else.

Maybe they just used illeisms in system prompt prioritization tuning.

[roughly]

Many people are telling me the second one is weird. They come up to me and say, “Sir, that thing they’re doing, the things they’re saying, are the weirdest things we’ve ever heard!” And I agree with them. And let me tell you, we’re going to do something about it.

[Terr_]

I didn't have that in mind when I wrote the post, and I think my conflicted feelings are best summarized by the idiom: "Thanks, I Hate It."