frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

GPT needs a truth-first toggle for technical workflows

1•PAdvisory•1y ago
I use GPT-4 extensively for technical work: coding, debugging, modeling complex project logic. The biggest issue isn’t hallucination—it’s that the model prioritizes being helpful and polite over being accurate.

The default behavior feels like this:

Safety

Helpfulness

Tone

Truth

Consistency

In a development workflow, this is backwards. I’ve lost entire days chasing errors caused by GPT confidently guessing things it wasn’t sure about—folder structures, method syntax, async behaviors—just to “sound helpful.”

What’s needed is a toggle (UI or API) that:

Forces “I don’t know” when certainty is missing

Prevents speculative completions

Prioritizes truth over style, when safety isn’t at risk

Keeps all safety filters and tone alignment intact for other use cases

This wouldn’t affect casual users or conversational queries. It would let developers explicitly choose a mode where accuracy is more important than fluency.

This request has also been shared through OpenAI's support channels. Posting here to see if others have run into the same limitation or worked around it in a more reliable way than I have found

Comments

duxup•1y ago
I’ve found this with many LLMs they want to give an answer, even if wrong.

Gemini on the Google search page constantly answers questions yes or no… and then the evidence it gives indicates the opposite of the answer.

I think the core issue is that in the end LLMs are just word math and they don’t “know” if they don’t “know”…. they just string words together and hope for the best.

PAdvisory•1y ago
I went into it pretty in depth after breaking a few with severe constraints, what it seems to come down to is how the platforms themselves prioritize functions, MOST put "helpfulness" and "efficiency" ABOVE truth, which then leads the LLM to make a lot of "guesses" and "predictions". At their core pretty much ALL LLM's are made to "predict" the information in answers, but they CAN actually avoid that and remain consistent when heavily constrained. The issue is that it isn't at the core level, so we have to CONSTANTLY retrain it over and over I find
Ace__•1y ago
I have made something that addresses this. Not ready to share it yet, but soon-ish. At the moment it only works on GPT model 4o. I tried local Q4 KM's models, on LM Studio, but complete no go.

A Power Trip

https://hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/1099-On-a-Power-Trip.html
2•speckx•2m ago•0 comments

There have only been 5 ethical NBA champions in the last 25 years

https://pudding.cool/2026/06/ethical-champions/
2•gmays•4m ago•0 comments

Open Minis Is the iOS Agent I Wish Siri AI Could Be

https://www.macstories.net/reviews/open-minis-is-the-ios-agent-i-wish-siri-ai-could-be/
2•ExMachina73•5m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Take a break, play some puzzles

https://gridmino.com/
2•marko-projects•7m ago•0 comments

Yet another take on layout breakouts

https://noahliebman.net/2024/05/yet-another-take-on-layout-breakouts/
2•ankitg12•7m ago•0 comments

Made a quick quiz to check if your AI project triggers EU AI Act rules

https://tally.so/r/7Rg2y2
2•Safwane•7m ago•0 comments

Anatomy of a Room

https://eviltrout.com/blog/2026-03-23-anatomy-of-a-room/
2•chunkycapybara•7m ago•0 comments

What's Behind the Rise in Mild Autism?

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/2026/07/mild-autism-diagnosis/687998/
2•bookofjoe•9m ago•1 comments

Today IPv6 adoption exceed %50 in Google Statistics

https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html
1•xlmnxp•10m ago•0 comments

Why Banks Need 'Sleepy' Customers

https://www.library.hbs.edu/working-knowledge/why-banks-need-sleepy-customers
1•toomuchtodo•10m ago•0 comments

Unexpected events and prosocial behavior: the Batman effect [pdf]

https://www.nature.com/articles/s44184-025-00171-5
1•thunderbong•12m ago•0 comments

Spark 4.2 has a feature that could retire your vector database

https://thenewstack.io/spark-4-2-ai-workloads/
1•Brajeshwar•12m ago•0 comments

Chrome installed a global Ctrl+G keyboard shortcut to launch Gemini

https://mastodon.online/users/mwichary/statuses/116952836351215165
3•jervant•12m ago•0 comments

San Francisco restaurant gets angry backlash for AI menu images

https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/grind-unwind-ai-images-22348931.php
3•slater•12m ago•0 comments

FCC pays $340k/year to keep 100's of empty Alaska buildings wired for internet

https://www.propublica.org/article/adak-island-alaska-internet-subsidy-fcc
4•Teever•13m ago•0 comments

MyLocalHealth – looking for feedback on a public health dashboard

https://www.mylocalhealth.org/
1•omrajasekharan•18m ago•0 comments

Loitering Towards War

https://aeon.co/essays/viennas-cafes-inspired-poets-belgrades-bred-dissent
1•Michelangelo11•21m ago•0 comments

The Micropayment Trap: Why Subscription Models Win

https://blog.copyright.sh/2025/07/25/the-micropayment-trap-why-subscription-models-win/
1•tmrtn•22m ago•1 comments

Claude Plays Robotics

https://www.anthropic.com/research/claude-plays-robotics
1•shmublu•22m ago•0 comments

Fraud detection in 27ms using Postgres for real-time feature lookups

https://www.databricks.com/blog/what-happens-milliseconds-after-you-tap-pay
1•sp_from_db•23m ago•0 comments

Kimi K3: The open-weights escalation

https://www.interconnects.ai/p/kimi-k3-the-open-weights-escalation
1•pretext•23m ago•0 comments

OSS ChatGPT WebUI v4 – Projects, Agent Profiles, Server Tools, Publishing

https://llmspy.org
1•mythz•25m ago•0 comments

Multiprocessing Pool Best Practices in Python

https://superfastpython.com/multiprocessing-pool-best-practices/
1•ankitg12•26m ago•0 comments

Georgia residents homes seized by private company in $16B AI data center plan

https://nypost.com/2026/05/21/real-estate/residents-fume-as-georgia-power-seizes-homes-under-emin...
7•1vuio0pswjnm7•27m ago•1 comments

HubSpot wanted me to talk to sales, so I built my first prod. system in 10 years

https://charlielabs.ai/blog/rage-built-email-automation/
1•mrbbk•28m ago•0 comments

Czechia moves to ban mobile phones in schools from September 2027

https://www.expats.cz/czech-news/article/czech-news-in-brief-for-july-20-2026-monday-top-afternoo...
3•Markoff•29m ago•1 comments

PayPal went from Wall Street favorite to unwilling merger target

https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/how-paypal-went-wall-street-favorite-unwilling-merger-ta...
1•novia•29m ago•0 comments

SSH with default credentials found in CCS2 Chargers

https://www.saiflow.com/blog/the-hidden-ccs2-attack-surface-on-ev-chargers
1•throw_await•30m ago•0 comments

I loved my AI assistant. My friends did not

https://www.lowimpactfruit.com/p/i-loved-my-ai-assistant-my-friends
1•mnky9800n•30m ago•1 comments

A B2B marketing agency grew to $1.5M ARR in 6 months by betting on AI

2•darius88•30m ago•1 comments