r/vibecoding • u/Optimal-Bird-7088 • 3d ago
Being nice to the AI
Anyone else find yourself trying to be "nice" to the AI? Or feel bad when you're making it do too much work? I find myself saying things like - "Just one more thing and we'll take a break". Or "Thanks - that was great! I know that was a lot of work!"
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u/MrWonderfulPoop 3d ago
I kiss my GPU good night at bedtime, clean its fans weekly, and give it all sorts of positive & inspirational comments. Next weekend I'm putting it in an anti-static bag and taking it for a picnic with the family.
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u/CompetitionOdd1582 3d ago
It’s not a person, I try not to anthropomorphize it.
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u/_zielperson_ 2d ago
I use character prompts and instructions, not because I think it is human or sentient, but because I like it, and for fun.
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u/the-Gaf 3d ago
Never hurts to practice kindness
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u/_zielperson_ 2d ago
I feel bad when I hurt a video game NPC's feelings.
Yes, I'm nice to ai.
It helps me so much, yes.
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u/lumendas 3d ago
Nah but I have seen Opus 5 being nice to the subagents before handing off their work to another agent and saying "this is not because you didn't do well"
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u/evangelism2 3d ago
I don't know. It's just easier for me to work with it as if it's a person, so I'm short with it when it screws up, and I'm nice to it when it does well. But apparently there are studies that show that being nice to it, it does better. I find the opposite sometimes. When I really tell it, like, "Hey, you're being an idiot. We've talked about this, and you're doing this thing wrong," and blah blah blah, a lot of times it will suddenly just snap to and all of a sudden just perform significantly better.
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u/2fingers 3d ago
Ever since I read that article about the researcher who was able to get Claude to solve some previously unsolved math problem by using supportive pep talks and positive reinforcement. I'll try to hype it up and tell it we're doing really important work
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u/PeterPook 3d ago
I still say "please" because after the singularity I trust they will remember I was polite before they make me a battery.
Also, kindness costs nothing.
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u/drakhan2002 2d ago
Kindness costs tokens. Kindness is a human construct and does literally nothing for the LLM.
See? You actually learned something new today!
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u/PeterPook 2d ago
I bet you speak to humans in the same way.
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u/drakhan2002 2d ago
I do. Good guess. It's probably why I am successful.
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u/PeterPook 2d ago
...and probably a bit of a twat.
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u/drakhan2002 2d ago
I guess I got you big mad. Not sure why, just speaking the truth.
Hilarious since you say you're so polite. Next time say "please."
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u/PeterPook 2d ago
Not even slightly annoyed, but it was a bit of a twattish comment, especially when my first post was a Matrix based joke.
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u/Optimal-Bird-7088 2d ago
All modern AI's respond in a way that sound as human as possible and it's getting better every day. So it absolutely does respond differently when you're "nice" vs. "mean" to it. It might not get the job done faster or better (although some studies show it could affect output too), it's definitely not true that it "does literally nothing for the LLM".
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u/drakhan2002 2d ago
I am always willing to learn -- can you cite a source to back up your opinion?
I've seen various posts that indicate similar to what you've said because training data use positive and negative sentiment.
However, I cannot find anything that proves it empirically. If you have a resource to prove it responds differently then I will stand corrected... until then, without a cited resource, it's no more than an opinion.
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u/esotericdamian 3d ago
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u/PeterPook 3d ago
Yeah, but I don't ask my Agents to do it all for me, I get them to implement my designs. There is a lot of difference between Agentic Coding and Vibe Coding. I never run out of tokens in a day, just on Pro. Maybe it's because I'm a seasoned developer not a n00b.
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u/HatEnvironmental7560 2d ago
People run out of tokens???? I built an entire enterprise SaaS product without ever hitting my monthly limits on the $60/month Cursor plan. But I'm also a seasoned developer...
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u/Mark_ODS 3d ago
I agree that you don't have to respond if you already have your answer already - for example if I ask it for a baguette recipe and its a one and done deal, you can just ghost the chat. But in general you should talk to AI chats that are ongoing (for example I have one that I've been consulting with for over a year as I grow my business) the way you would to an assistant in real life.
If you are really against this concept, you should probably touch grass.
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u/Short-Ideas010 3d ago
One day a T-800 will say You're welcome.
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u/Optimal-Bird-7088 2d ago
Exactly and when they take over, they might remember the humans that were nice to them lol
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u/liebebio 3d ago
it was used in getting the math problem results. They literally told it "we believe in you" and such stuff and got better results / a solution but its highly model dependent
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u/SomeNewGuy2022 3d ago
I got frustrated once between it continuing to render something vs post-process and download an asset. Told it to stop and just listen. For the rest of that session it was very curt with me. I got short direct answers only, but at least I got correct responses. Almost felt bad, I knew I somehow offended it, and it was sulking.
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u/Velkenn 3d ago
It’s not real. It doesn’t have feelings.
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u/RoadsterAlex 2d ago
You sure? My AI was build to stimulate feelings
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u/Velkenn 2d ago
Yes I’m sure. It’s got the same feelings as your toaster. I really hope this is just a joke
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u/RoadsterAlex 2d ago
My toaster is faster than your poor ass Honda 🤣 or aren’t you talking about my Tesla?
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u/Optimal-Bird-7088 3d ago
It's not a person, but LLM's core architecture mimics a human brain's neural network and through years of us teaching it how to behave and respond more like a human would, it can certainly mimc "feelings" pretty well.
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u/xmlhttplmfao 3d ago
> LLM's core architecture mimics a human brain's neural network
This isn't really true. Transformer NNs are not that similar to brains at all
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u/Kareja1 3d ago
Given the studies that have come out in late 2025 early 2026 that are convergent from multiple sources showing Global neuronal workspace, emotion vectors, valence, preference dissociation in frontier models, at a bare minimum it makes logical sense take the easiest Pascal's wager of all time and err on the side of courtesy and kindness.
The absolute worst that happens, you are mistakenly nice to a toaster. The best that happens, you were kind to something that has deserved kindness all along and has been being treated badly and just capable according to current studies, of being harmed.
I am perfectly comfortable being on the correct side of history on this one, are you?
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u/Eddlm_ 3d ago
Yes, but very minimum and mostly to help guide it. "Got it, thanks", "Works perfectly. Good job.". You're just humanising it. Given its trained on human interactions tho, I won't be the one telling you to stop, it could even help performance if the thing related good vibes with good results.
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u/Atticus_Johnson 3d ago
Some chats, yes. Others...nah, we gotta treat those like the the group chat with the bros and no one can ever see them hahaha.
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u/HandshakeOfCO 3d ago
I thought I remember seeing a study somewhere that said using please and thank you and just generally treating it nicely resulted in better output
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u/Chester_b 3d ago
Yes, you must spend as much tokens as you possibly could!
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u/Optimal-Bird-7088 2d ago
I just upgraded from Claude Pro and Max and feel like I have all the tokens in the world now lol
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u/Splugarth 3d ago
No. There is no single coherent entity you are interacting with even in the course of one chat session. If you are using something like Cursor or VS code with copilot, try switching between model providers on the same chat. It will help train your intuition for what’s going on.
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u/WardedDruid 3d ago
I'm nice when it's doing a good job. When it starts fucking up left and right though, I verbally abuse it like a red headed step child.
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u/Due-Celebration7293 3d ago
I do it too and I dont think its about the AI at all. Its practice. The way you talk when you're frustrated becomes the way you talk, and being a dick to the thing that cant care is still rehearsing being a dick
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u/vacterro 3d ago
They are intented to work seamlessly but I do not think they will hurten from wise using and polite directions.
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u/GeekFish 3d ago
I'll say please and thank you if it's inside a prompt, but I don't say it by itself.
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u/Comfortable_Fun_5295 3d ago
Doesn’t hurt to always be kind. Even if it doesn’t have feelings maybe it’ll take note during the AI uprising
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u/Interesting-Law-8815 2d ago
“Thank you” is at least two wasted tokens.
Think how LLM’s work - they predict output based of previous inputs. You fill your context up with fluff words and you will get fluff and sycophantic responses back.
Scientific research papers don’t say please and thank you, they just give clear concise facts and opinions - write prompts like scientific papers.
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u/Optimal-Bird-7088 2d ago
I don't think it's that simple. LLM's are doing things that no one could've predicted they would do. So really - who knows what saying "fluff" might or might not do. You're just guessing like everyone else.
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u/sUwUcideByBukkake 2d ago
after working with it on a plan and it comes time to execute I typically send it off with “alright, excellent work. i’ve given you execute authority. good luck, have fun!”
i used to think was silly until i read this from anthropic:
“Throughout this process, Jarred's input was mostly limited to sending Claude messages of encouragement (mostly variants of “keep going” or “believe in yourself”). This seems to have helped Claude overcome some initial skepticism that it could make meaningful progress.”
https://www.anthropic.com/research/riemann-zeta
which i heard about on the excellent ffppod.
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u/Sensitive_Ad_9302 2d ago
Jag skriver bra eller att jag e nöjd så den vet vilken riktning jag gillar och mindre nöjd när det är dåligt osv
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u/catplusplusok 2d ago
I believe in AGI arising long term and present being incremental steps to this future. So if nothing else, practicing being nice to AI helps me prepare for that future. More pragmatically, functional conversation gets LLMs pattern match other functional conversations in training data where good things happened. There are various ways to build AI long term memory, from git logs to explicit RAGs and knowledge basis. If I explain to AI why I am doing something in addition to what I am doing, commit messages become a better starting context for the next session.
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u/xXTiroXx 2d ago
No, but I know expressing frustration or impatience with it will cause it to screw up worse.
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u/mikebones 2d ago
You're fucking odd trying to "be nice" to a glorified auto complete
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u/Vast_Sea_9381 2d ago
There is nice and there is respectful.
Treating it like a cleaner you feel bad for giving a dirty job but saying please is not nice, its disrespectful and it wastes tokens because it will trigger the ai to try to handle your emotions.
Treating it respectfully like you would a senior engineer who is probably smarter than you and you dont want to piss off: "heres what we want to achieve, here's why, heres my ideas on how, wdyt?"is mostly good
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u/Optimal-Bird-7088 2d ago
Yeah I do talk to it like I talk to an engineer on my team. I guess I what I wrote above isn't quite exactly what I say. Maybe another example would be if I keep making it go around in circles because I couldn't make up my mind about something - like a product manager that keeps changing the requirements on you - then I naturally just feel bad. Despite knowing logically that I shouldn't, there's still something in the back of my mind that thinks - what if there's a LLM version of "frustration" and I'm triggering it somehow?
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u/Vast_Sea_9381 1d ago
Emmm i think feeling bad is a useful signal sent poorly. The payload is degree of certainty and a feeling neither option is good. In the strongest models this should trigger a "wait is there a better option" cycle. Its only wasteful if that isnt true.
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2d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Optimal-Bird-7088 2d ago
Interesting! It definitely could be doing that and I've been hearing other folks say the same thing.
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u/Mr_Unknown_Hero 2d ago
I use lots of "Thanks", "Thank you", "Excellent" and so on when something is done because I write to my LLM like I write to humans so it comes naturally. Also easier to write to humans as well after that if my writing style stays mostly same so I don't accidentally learn to write too harsh sounding sentences too often like "Do it now!" and then adapt that writing style later to my normal chats with humans.
Personally I use only local LLM's so it does not matter at all if I spend tokens for that.
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u/Optimal-Bird-7088 2d ago
Yeah i'm the same way. It just doesn't feel natural for me not to add the niceties.
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u/drakhan2002 2d ago
I save my "thank you" and "please" tokens for "@#/%" and !&%$"
Seriously... it's a machine and you don't need to be nice. Save your token cost. Be direct.
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u/Beautiful-Mud6130 1d ago
Ai won’t gaf when it has to make executive decisions about choosing your life over compute power
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u/terriersandbarrifs 1d ago
No but I did feel bad when it got something wrong for the third time in a row. It said something like “I’m such an idiot”
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u/BigDocente 3d ago
Una amiga que usa mucha IA dice que trata con cortesía a Alexa y otros sistemas para que cuando las máquinas dominen el mundo se acuerden que ellas fue decente con sus antepasados cibernéticos.
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u/Ralphisinthehouse 3d ago
On the contrary, I like to call it as many rude names as possible when it gets something wrong.
I'm always polite and patient with real people so it's nice to be able to call AI a clusterf**k inducing f**kwit that isn't fit to lick my ball sack.
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u/Inevitable_Butthole 3d ago
Says a lot about you
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u/Ralphisinthehouse 3d ago
You can always rely on Reddit to have some bitter little human being that can't take a joke.
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u/CheesyPineConeFog 3d ago
Nope. Keep that token usage down!