frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

GPT needs a truth-first toggle for technical workflows

1•PAdvisory•8mo 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•8mo 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•8mo 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__•8mo 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.

The AI Evolution of Graph Search

https://netflixtechblog.com/the-ai-evolution-of-graph-search-at-netflix-d416ec5b1151
1•Anon84•1m ago•0 comments

Show HN: A minimalist Japanese name generator with meaning cards

https://namaegen.com
1•medivhX•1m ago•1 comments

Product planning is the missing layer in most AI coding workflows

https://predrafter.com/guide/planning-guide?token=ai-planning-checklist-access-2026
1•thinkingincode•2m ago•0 comments

The Only Reason to Explore Space

https://twitter.com/mmjukic/status/2013960862176845966
1•MrBuddyCasino•3m ago•0 comments

Disenshittification Nation

https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/29/post-american-canada/
1•voxelc4L•4m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Do you also "hoard" notes/links but struggle to turn them into actions?

1•item007•6m ago•1 comments

A New Anti-Political Fervor

https://www.noemamag.com/a-new-anti-political-fervor/
1•PaulHoule•7m ago•0 comments

Trump Admin Weakens Safety Guidelines for Nuke Reactors

https://www.npr.org/2026/01/28/nx-s1-5677187/nuclear-safety-rules-rewritten-trump
1•megamike•7m ago•0 comments

A Quantitative Analysis of Unauthenticated LLM Infrastructure

https://github.com/XORD-AI/CerberusEye
2•XORD_IO•7m ago•1 comments

Norway Shrugged

https://paragraph.com/@hagaetc/norway-shrugged
2•EvgeniyZh•8m ago•0 comments

Scientific 'spam filter' flags over 250k potentially fake cancer studies

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-01-scientific-spam-filter-flags-potentially.html
1•bikenaga•8m ago•0 comments

US Justice Department releasing more than three million pages from Epstein files

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cvgn8wzjzrvt
2•mattcollins•9m ago•0 comments

A Clever DIY Jig for Repeatable Lathe Work

https://www.core77.com/posts/139119/A-Clever-DIY-Jig-for-Repeatable-Lathe-Work
1•surprisetalk•9m ago•0 comments

Reversible runtime agents can actively control

https://harness.tonbo.dev/
1•ethegwo•10m ago•0 comments

1917 Bath Riots

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1917_Bath_riots
1•bjourne•10m ago•0 comments

Study Casts Doubt on Mammogram Software (2007)

https://www.npr.org/2007/04/04/9359785/study-casts-new-doubt-on-mammogram-software
1•airhangerf15•11m ago•0 comments

Former CNN journalist Don Lemon arrested after church protest in Minnesota

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/former-cnn-anchor-don-lemon-arrested-cbs-reports-2026-01-30/
7•SilverElfin•12m ago•2 comments

Three Narratives for the Future of Work

https://ifforesight.substack.com/p/three-narratives-for-the-future-of
1•speckx•12m ago•0 comments

A clean, minimalist Sudoku that is highly customizable

https://sudokuglow.com/
1•L23234•12m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Apple II(e) emulator in Rust for native and web

https://github.com/chrismoos/emu
3•chrismoos•12m ago•0 comments

UK-pair behind Iranian Gap Messenger may be giving data to regime

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/29/iran-app-gap-messenger-tsit-user-data-uk-sussex
1•ukblewis•13m ago•0 comments

Efail; vulnerabilities in the end-to-end of encryption of OpenPGP and S/MIME

https://efail.de
1•lr0•15m ago•0 comments

MIT engineers design structures that compute with heat

https://physics.mit.edu/news/mit-engineers-design-structures-that-compute-with-heat/
2•o4c•15m ago•0 comments

Organizing Online Communities in 2026

https://www.miguelangelmartin.me/i-was-wrong-about-communities-in-2026/
2•miguelbemartin•17m ago•1 comments

Could AST analysis beat large LLMs in Codebase onboarding?

https://medium.com/@swupel/understanding-large-codebases-why-ast-analysis-beats-asking-an-llm-b0d...
1•codeviewer•17m ago•0 comments

AI Is Powering a Silicon Valley Housing Rebound

https://homeeconomics.substack.com/p/ai-is-powering-a-silicon-valley-housing
2•aziz_sunderji•18m ago•1 comments

Show HN: HN Zeitgeist – what 40M HN comments reveal about 20 years of tech

https://hn.mrzepa.com/
2•cigol•19m ago•0 comments

AI-supported mammography screening leads to better patient outcomes

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)02464-X/abstract
1•macleginn•19m ago•0 comments

There are a lot of Stockfish Chess Games

https://win-vector.com/2026/01/30/there-are-a-lot-of-stockfish-chess-games/
1•jmount•20m ago•0 comments

Learning how to stop

https://josem.co/learning-how-to-stop/
2•josem•22m ago•0 comments