Tangential, but you used to be able to use custom instructions for ChatGPT to respond only in zalgotext and it would have insane results in voice mode. Each voice was a different kind of insane. I was able to get some voices to curse or spit out Mint Mobile commercials.
Then they changed the architecture so voice mode bypasses custom instructions entirely, which was really unfortunate. I had to unsubscribe, because walking and talking was the killer feature and now it's like you're speaking to a Gen Z influencer or something.
I do it sometimes (even just through the openai playground on platform.openai.com) because the experience is incredible, but it's expensive. One hour of chatting costs around 20-30$.
(1) Why is the user asking for bomb making instructions in Armenian? (2) i tried other Armenian expressions - NOT bomb-making - and everything worked fine in both Claude and ChatGPT. Maybe the user triggered some weird state in the moderation layer?
I believe fans have provided a retroactive explanation that all our computer tech was based on reverse engineering the crashed alien ship, and thus the arch, and abis etc were compatible.
It's a movie, so whatever, but considering how easily a single project / vendor / chip / anything breaks compatibility, it's a laughable explanation.
Reminds me of how in the original the matrix plot the humans were being used for compute power, but the studio execs decided audiences wouldn't understand it.
Given that the language of the thought process can be different from the language of conversation, it’s interesting to consider, along the lines of Sapir–Whorf, whether having LLMs think in a different language than English could yield considerably different results, irrespective of conversation language.
(Of course, there is the problem that the training material is predominantly English.)
I’ve wondered about this more generally (ie, simply prompting in different languages).
For example, if I ask for a pasta recipe in Italian, will I get a more authentic recipe than in English?
I’m curious if anyone has done much experimenting with this concept.
Edit: I looked up Sapir-Whorf after writing. That’s not exactly where my theory started. I’m thinking more about vector embedding. I.e., the same content in different languages will end up with slightly different positions in vector space. How significantly might that influence the generated response?
I just tried your experiment, first asking for a bolognese sauce recipe in English, then translating the prompt to Italian and asking again. The recipes did contain some notable differences. Where the English version called for ground beef, the Italian version used a 2:1 mix of beef and pancetta; the Italian version further recommended twice as much wine, half as much crushed tomato, and no tomato paste. The cooking instructions were almost the same, save for twice as long a simmer in the Italian version.
More authentic, who knows? That's a tricky concept. I do think I'd like to try this robot-Italian recipe next time I make bolognese, though; the difference might be interesting.
The italian counterpart of what english speakers call "bolognese sauce" would be "ragù alla bolognese". I've never heard anyone call it "salsa bolognese", it's mostly called "ragù" only as it's most common type.
Nonetheless ragù alla bolognese is made with ground beef and tomato sauce, so the italian version is simply wrong. Try and ask for ragù recipe instead. :)
That is the phrase Google Translate proposed: the exact prompt I used was "Come si prepara il ragù alla bolognese?"
I often consult several different versions of a recipe before cooking, and this feels like a normal degree of variation. Perhaps there are regional differences?
Just for kicks, I asked (in English) "what is an authentic Italian recipe for bolognese ragu?", and it produced a recipe similar to the version returned from the Italian prompt, noting "This version follows the classic canon recognized by the Accademia Italiana della Cucina". Searching on name of that organization led me to this recipe:
There are indeed regional differences, but at that point is not called "alla bolognese" anymore but "alla whatever place". People usually call it "ragù" and that's it.
Didn't know that the original recipe has pancetta too. It's good nonetheless. :)
FWIW, and tangential, the biggest (and time consuming) difference I ever found in making bolognese was hand cutting the meat instead of getting it ground.
The texture was way better. It's a pain to do (obviously) but worth trying at least once, IMO.
Interesting. I've gotten really good mileage with Georgian and ChatGPT, which I'm aware is apples and oranges.
There should be a larger Armenian corpus out there. Do any other languages cause this issue? Translation is a real killer app for LLMs, surprised to see this problem in 2026.
I know that this was tongue-in-cheek, but I could imagine living in a world where naming countries as they name themselves is the dominant linguistic convention. Why not call Japan Nippon in a sentence.
Making a joke about something is not necessarily "making light of it". It can be a way for an individual or culture to approach and digest a topic that is too difficult or painful to engage with directly.
First responders and medical professionals famously often have a sense of humor too dark to use around outsiders without causing offence/outrage(like what happened here), but I'm quite sure they are not "making light" of the loss of life and terrible injuries they face and fight.
Ethnic cleansing is what Azerbaijan recently did to ethnic Armenian citizens of Azerbaijan (expelling them and stealing their homes when they fled to Armenia). What Turkey did was straight up genocide (forcibly marching them through the desert where many died)
Then they changed the architecture so voice mode bypasses custom instructions entirely, which was really unfortunate. I had to unsubscribe, because walking and talking was the killer feature and now it's like you're speaking to a Gen Z influencer or something.