[miroljub]

> 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.

[DrewADesign]

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.

[Asraelite]

You are conflating obnoxiousness with directness.

[bcjdjsndon]

Rudeness is completely arbitrary and you have to figure it what exactly is rude by, basically, upsetting humans and avoiding whatever caused the upset in the future.

People who either can't or don't want to do that say they're "direct" or "honest" or "logical" but there's another word for it, begins with A

[DrewADesign]

> begins with A

Afraid.

I worked in a job that involved lots of confrontation — everything from heated arguments to brawls. Later in life, in knowledge work fields, the similarity in base human behaviors is impossible to ignore: the less confident someone is in themselves, the more overtly aggressive and pugnacious they are. Everybody has bad days, but in general, people that are confident and comfortable are usually calm, willing to entertain differing ideas rationally, and have no trouble presenting their ideas without browbeating people into agreeing with them. People lacking confidence are nervous, and preparing to endure rejection before they even open their mouths. By the time what they’re saying comes out, they’re in full-on a-hole mode, and assume anyone that engages with them is also looking for a fight.

Bringing it back to physical confrontation, could you imagine an action film where the hero walks around trying you square off with anyone that bumped into them, or levied some other perceived disrespect? No. They walk around calm because they know they can handle whatever comes up.

When you’re in the mind of the person unknowingly engaging in that emotional self-defense strategy, it’s pretty opaque. It feels like being confident. To everyone else it’s just obnoxious and sad.

[bauldursdev]

I haven't read the paper but it seems like it's saying rude prompts are better, so isn't it reasonable to assume that's what they meant? If we want to talk about directness, that's kind of a tangent right? I see directness as an entirely different dimension, you can be very direct and polite, you can be very rude and indirect (e.g. passive aggressive). Maybe they should do a follow-up study on how well AI responds based on level of directness.

[miroljub]

Many people, especially from non-direct societies, just can't distinguish and see directness as rude.

That's why you constantly see people from India or the USA complaining about Dutch or German people being rude, where in fact they are just direct in their way of communications.

I remember having a call from a manager in the USA who wanted to know what's wrong because I wrote "it was ok" in the feedback form for one of their subordinates. It was difficult to explain to him that nothing was wrong, it really was okay, and the bar for awesome and superb is much higher here where we live.

[moomin]

That’s mostly a problem for obnoxious people, honestly.

[miroljub]

> 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]

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]

> 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).

[bcjdjsndon]

> 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).

Literally not why lol you absolute dreamer

Normally people who back this "I can talk how I like to people cos I'm being honest" are either genuinely autistic and can't read emotions, or they have just had a shitty homelife, parents or upbringing. I suspect you're the second.

[miroljub]

> Normally people who back this "I can talk how I like to people cos I'm being honest" are either genuinely autistic and can't read emotions, or they have just had a shitty homelife, parents or upbringing. I suspect you're the second.

When I read a statement like this, I can give you two answers:

1st answer (direct): You are obviously too stupid to understand the difference between being direct and trying to insult people for the sake of insulting or some sick personal satisfaction.

2nd answer (insulting): Whatever, I can just hope your cage bars are made of solid material so you don't get out and your walls are soft so you don't hurt yourself.

It's your choice what kind of conversation you want to have.

[bcjdjsndon]

And your post is basically implicit permission for everyone to speak to you like shit from now on cos you dont mind it.... Let's see how long you can take that before you start complaining

[DrewADesign]

Not considering ‘self-absorbed’ an insult reveals everything this conversation could possibly yield.

[brookst]

You’ve conflated two things:

1. Saying that an answer may be too simplistic and a more nuanced view is warranted.

2. Saying that an answer is both reductive and self-absorbed

One opens the door to many possibilities, and invites deeper thinking.

Two asserts that you know for a fact that the answer is wrong that it’s wrong because of a character flaw.

I’m a huge fan of directness, but it is a very different thing from omniscience.

A direct version of 2 would be: “that approach loses important nuance, like [example]. Give it another go?”

[kbelder]

Politeness is me speaking directly and freely. Rudeness is a facade and a burden, that I employ only when circumstances require it.

I suspect that most people are like that.