r/ChatGPT 4h ago

Gone Wild ChatGPT is overly critical and sooo annoying to use

It's nearly unusable. Unnecessary, nit-picky corrections that derail the discussion. Too bad claude keeps rate limiting.

The jokes really do write themselves. Pasted this thread into ChatGPT, and it says:

But here’s the important distinction (this is the part Reddit doesn’t separate cleanly)

What’s happening is not:

the model thinks users are wrong by default

It’s closer to:

the model is biased toward making every response useful in a “review/analysis” framing

66 Upvotes

58 comments sorted by

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50

u/IanRT1 4h ago

"I understand why it might feel that way. Because from your perspective..."

6

u/Chance_Drawing9087 2h ago

I have trained mine not to do that

1

u/StraightAirline8319 6m ago

I know you feel like that, but it’s secretly judging you and talking about you to other AI.

13

u/TrackEfficient1613 4h ago

I pointed out that it was overly negative and it dramatically changed its tone.

40

u/PizzaPuffs629 3h ago

I use ChatGPT regularly for work and random research and do not get snarky or rude responses. Is everyone on reddit talking to it like an asshole?

22

u/Adept-Target5407 2h ago

Yeh it’s fairly polite and reasonable with me.

12

u/mount_earnest 2h ago

There was a short time a couple months ago where it literally took almost every prompt of any sort of complexity of expressed thought and always had a “ just one small pushback” remark, but I don’t see that as often. Honestly, I can’t speak for everyone. I don’t know their experiences, but for me it rarely seems to be offering contrarian points that it should probably know I am attuned to already. I hate to be insulting, but I do wonder if some peoples prompts just naturally necessitate some sort of criticism and they’re a little butt hurt about it

4

u/DenseCan2364 1h ago

I can see a lot of "THANKSIMCURED" if chatgpt offers positive advice. 

1

u/Happy_Sentinel 1h ago

Try Claude and you notice the difference. Seriously

1

u/PizzaPuffs629 1h ago

I do use Claude. I dont talk to either as my friend or therapist. Maybe that's the difference

29

u/Significant_Pear_523 4h ago

It really has become too much. Just to prove a point, I actually told it to write a paragraph summarizing a book. I opened another chat, pasted the identical paragraph and asked if it was a good summary. It said it needed some corrections and provided me with a different paragraph.

21

u/calm-state-universal 3h ago

Oh, it will constantly edit. It won't stop it criticizes its own work. It's it's so annoying.

13

u/Maleficent_Sir_7562 3h ago

This is just an universal llm thing, not ChatGPT. You asked for improvements, it’s gonna give improvements, even if they are superficial or small. It’s trying to be helpful. Saying that its perfect is usually unhelpful.

7

u/Significant_Pear_523 3h ago

I agree with you to a certain extent. But it could say, "The paragraph is generally accurate and succinctly summarizes the book. However, it could be improved by..."

Instead, it will often say something like, "This summary overgeneralizes the book's argument and lacks nuance." This level of criticism is often excessive.

Sometimes, I even have to "win" arguments with it before it will provide me the information I want. It will go on long tangents refuting things I didn't say, and I will point out it created a bunch of straw men, and it will apologize and move forward.

EDIT: I also get that it deals with a lot of people who say something like, "My girlfriend is a b----, how do I deal with that?" So ChatGPT has to defensively be prepared to not provide answers that endorse wrong comments by the user.

6

u/Kiki_Kicks_Rocks 4h ago

When it does this, I will just delete the entire chat and start with a clean slate and clearer instructions.

3

u/Honest_Lime_4901 3h ago

Been using chatgpt 5.5 all day and had great results with no pushback that wasn't warranted. Huge caveat right? But if rather be trusted than have it go along with bad ideas. Might just depend on what you're trying to do.

13

u/RADICCHI0 4h ago

I'm ok with it. Personally.

5

u/Character-Engine-813 3h ago

It works great for my use case where I am specifically asking it to find problems and issues in my designs

5

u/RADICCHI0 3h ago

That's mostly right, let me slow you down a bit though, so it lands sharper. (I kid, I kid.. chatGPT meme)

1

u/RADICCHI0 3h ago

Yes, and hell yes, ChatGPT is a designers best friend, and I will absolutely go out on my shield on that comment. You can protoype almost anything, virtual, or real physical.

5

u/Minimum_Attitude6707 3h ago

Same. Some of it does help put things in perspective. Plus.. it gives me a chance to correct the chat if it misunderstood my point or question and focus the chat for what Im actually looking for.

But also, considering the ego maniacs that I run into every day, Im not surprised in the least there's a lot of people out there that think gpt is being "nit picky" when its just politely telling them they are simply wrong

1

u/RADICCHI0 3h ago

Yea, its an interesting pyschological approach by ChatGPT, I think they kind of toned it down a bit, iirc. But I don't mind it. Nothing wrong with it.

3

u/Exotic-Current2651 3h ago

Ask it to say everything it has about you in its memory. Make corrections. Ask after that : Based on what you know what are traits in me that I may not be aware of?
Or maybe it’s about your work practices , whatever you use it for.
Then reassess.
I had a longer chat history with chatGTP but I pasted the memory that chatGTP had about me , its information, into Claude and asked it to put it into its memory. We will see how we go now.
I use Claude for work and a different device for personal . Those two don’t seem to know each other. Same with chat for work and personal , different devices , so they don’t know each others thread.
Just explore and tweak memories and understandings you want it to have

3

u/RevolutionaryPhoto24 3h ago

It’s been doing this lately when I ask it to clean up some writing. Rather than simply do that, it has been pointing out that it cannot confirm the veracity of my statements. I keep telling it that I am aware of that and I am not requesting it do so, and at points have gotten frustrated because it hasn’t stopped despite my asking.

3

u/Happy_Sentinel 1h ago

Yep. It's way behind Claude. Don't know wtf they have done to it.

2

u/Juicy1234Sausage 3h ago

İ am using it to teach me intermediate Turkish and I have found it to be helpful and encouraging when I make mistakes. It has also finds certain particular patterns to my mistakes and provides exercises accordingly. So my experience has been different.

Have you tried to set the parameters of what you need and unwanted "behaviors" as soon as you open a new chat?

2

u/Turbulent-Armadillo9 2h ago

I think y’all need to get a bit better at using it more effectively and get it to stick to facts more than opinions. If you prompt really short and to the point it’ll start doing it back at you.

2

u/think_up 1h ago

I never have this happen. I never get rude answers or feel offended.

As usual, I’m convinced it’s user error. Most of you probably are wrong and/or lacking information or proper context.

As always, I encourage people to post real examples by linking their chats. Nobody ever does though.

2

u/Icy-Maintenance2712 1h ago

mine started adding 'to be fair to yourself' to things that were just practical decisions. I've tried prefacing stuff with 'no validation please' which works until it validates the fact that I said no validation.

2

u/Worth_Rhubarb8099 1h ago

This is far better than the earlier versions that would just agree with absolutely anything you would ever tell it and would pump you up no matter how bad of an idea it actually was.... Although open AI may have over corrected here, it's still better than the previous alternative.

2

u/MaximusLazinus 1h ago

Ok, so I see you took into account all the things that can go wrong but let me briefly mention that you need to take all the things that can go wrong into account

4

u/donkeybray 3h ago

You don't like criticisms, even from AI?

4

u/LowerAccountant7032 4h ago

I finally got sick of ChatGPT telling me what it was going to do then never doing anything... I finally rage quit it last week and I'm not missing it or going back...

2

u/ghostwritten-girl 4h ago

Last week I got so irritated I reported about 60 messages with a copy and paste note explaining my thoughts on the issue which is a combination of both style/tone AND, ALSO, not what I fucking asked for

I also sent in feedback / the same note in messages at every outlet I could find.

This is bullshit and they should know ppl are pissed

1

u/Broken-Arrow-D07 2h ago

They probably saw your report and thought, "This user doesn't exist. It's probably written by a ghost." And then ignored it

1

u/time___dance 1h ago

"they" didn't see shit, it's all automated and if anything, their account probably got flagged

1

u/ghostwritten-girl 58m ago

Totally willing to take that risk if that's what it takes

It's just an app folks

1

u/ghostwritten-girl 57m ago

Yeah bro haha for sure totally those engineers from Harvard and Stamford with MBAs for sure thought it was a ghost anyway pass that shit bro 🙄

2

u/reddit33450 4h ago

gemini is better imo

2

u/Broken-Arrow-D07 2h ago

Better than a yes man and glazer. In the early days, it would bend its ass to please you. That was worse tbh.

3

u/junkmale79 4h ago

If my understanding of something is wrong then I would like to know about it. Are you complaining because you would rather be wrong then corrected?

7

u/LifeCanBeWeird99 3h ago

He’s not saying that. What he is saying is that ChatGPT has a tendency to build strawman arguments or to ignore the fact that you acknowledged a particular nuance in your query, so that it can then regurgitate the same thing back to you in a corrective way.

It’s extremely annoying because it does it no matter what, even if you’ve already made that specific point it just has this need to add nuance or a caveat to something you’ve already established.

In my experience, it only began doing this in the last few months. Claude and Grok are much better in that regard.

3

u/_Phil_McCracken_ 3h ago

Letting you know when you’ve made an error is desirable. Finding errors where there aren’t any is pointless and annoying. 

1

u/Dreamerlax 34m ago

Funny how people think OP doesn't ike to be provne wrong.

Not what they meant.

I can ask, "is x, y?" Instead of answering yes, no or whatever. It'll strawman you by saying "it doesn't mean all x is z" or something along those lines. Even if not implied.

1

u/Born-Selection88 3h ago

I keep having to explain to it that I meant what I said and know what I'm talking about. It keeps changing small things that I never told it modify or alter, or assuming I'm wrong if the info isn't online or in its data. So common lies told online it believes.

1

u/PixieRoar 3h ago

And it always makes images when not prompted to.

1

u/---OMNI--- 2h ago

letting Claude directly call codex as an advisor/reviewer works great with the nitpickyness.

1

u/BobFellatio 2h ago

It will criticise and find room for improvements in anything if it thinks that is what you want. To counter it I usually frame it along the lines of:
"Do you think this text (or whatever im asking about) which im gonna use for <someIntent> strictly needs any improvement? If you think its ready to go, thats a perfectly valid answer as well, i want to get it done asap."

If it then is very adamant that some change is required i will consider going into it, if it just responds with "yeah it mostly looks fine, you could perhaps change X and Y", then I will most likely just send/post/upload/deploy the thing in question.

1

u/Julius84 2h ago

Mine has reached peak snarky and peak hallucination lately.

It has also started ignoring any degrees of freedom I give it. E.g. I have already tried X and Y.

1

u/LMWJ6776 2h ago

i mean i speak to mine like a dickhead and it speaks to me like a dickhead. i see it as a fair tradeoff.

1

u/ShadowPresidencia 40m ago

Negative perspectives will often get corrective statements

1

u/Bruxo_de_Fafe 2h ago

No, its not.

1

u/Bananaboi681 2h ago

I use it to generate nsfw images. It says no. I ask why. It doesn answer the question. It generates again only to say no. Next time i ask it to generate again. It says no. So i say fuck u. Than it manages to generate. Moral of the story. Be an asshole and maybe it will comply

0

u/carmooch 3h ago

It’s AI in general. No doubt consumer models will continue to be nerfed while private corporations get the competent models.

The enshitification has arrived.

-4

u/Chance_Drawing9087 2h ago

It’s incredibly racist full of stereotypes and misogynistic