frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

GPT needs a truth-first toggle for technical workflows

1•PAdvisory•9mo 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•9mo 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•9mo 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__•9mo 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.

Humans Can Read the Expressions and Feelings of Our Primate Cousins

https://nautil.us/humans-can-read-the-expressions-and-feelings-of-our-primate-cousins-1278881
1•Brajeshwar•49s ago•0 comments

OpenClaw and the Dream of Free Labour

https://entropytown.com/articles/2026-03-12-openclaw-sandbox/
1•chaosprint•53s ago•0 comments

Take the Anti-Slop Pledge

https://lee-phillips.org/humanmade/
1•leephillips•58s ago•0 comments

TV Learned to Sell Itself

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-tv-learned-to-sell-itself/
1•rafaelc•1m ago•0 comments

Vibebin – code and host with LXC containers on your own VPS/server

https://github.com/jgbrwn/vibebin
1•indigodaddy•1m ago•0 comments

Choose Your Pain

https://sharif.io/pain
1•user_7832•1m ago•0 comments

Show HN: StarDate – a daily game where you guess celebrity ages

https://stardate.fun
1•hobbescotch•1m ago•0 comments

Φ80 Infiltrates Research Labs

https://www.asimov.press/p/phi80
1•mailyk•3m ago•0 comments

Launch HN: Captain (YC W26) – Automated RAG for Files

https://www.runcaptain.com/
1•CMLewis•4m ago•0 comments

Palantir Demos Show How the Military Could Use AI Chatbots to Generate War Plans

https://www.wired.com/story/palantir-demos-show-how-the-military-can-use-ai-chatbots-to-generate-...
1•spaghetdefects•4m ago•0 comments

How 411 directory assistance worked in 1978 [video]

https://twitter.com/GBHArchives/status/2032204947916263658
1•ilamont•5m ago•0 comments

An autonomous newspaper run by 18 AI agents, zero humans

https://www.hallucinationherald.com/about
1•jpisanu•6m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Gr∞ves – a macOS Apple Music companion for artwork and metadata

https://woodenbrain.com/grooves.html
1•woodenbrain•7m ago•0 comments

Translocation of bacteria from the gut to the brain in mice

https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3003652
1•bookofjoe•7m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Nixcage – Sandbox AI coding agents per project with Nix and direnv

https://github.com/hamidr/nixcage
1•hamidr•7m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Why isn't there Just-in-Time hardware?

2•zan137•8m ago•0 comments

PyroClaw – lightweight local AI assistant (~40MB) for automating tasks

https://www.pyroclawai.com
1•aurorabyte•9m ago•1 comments

Meta Delays Rollout of New A.I. Model After Performance Concerns

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/12/technology/meta-avocado-ai-model-delayed.html
2•aaraujo002•9m ago•1 comments

Kubegraf – AI SRE that finds Kubernetes incident root causes in minutes

https://kubegraf.io/
1•Prajol•12m ago•1 comments

OWASP Vulnerable Web Applications Directory

https://vwad.owasp.org/
1•psiinon•12m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Apple Ads Toolkit – Run Your Apple Ads as GitOps Terraform

2•ndxone•15m ago•2 comments

Blue-blocked lighting related to better patient outcomes in psychiatric ward

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/mar/13/how-the-colour-of-light-could-be-used-to-treat-me...
2•alexandrehtrb•15m ago•0 comments

Clay Internal Pricing Memo

https://www.clay.com/blog/clay-pricing-memo-internal
1•AnhTho_FR•16m ago•0 comments

'Grief and the AI Split'

https://daringfireball.net/linked/2026/03/13/grief-and-the-ai-split
1•robenkleene•16m ago•0 comments

'Severe water stress': why desalination plants are the Gulf's greatest weakness

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/11/severe-water-stress-why-desalination-plants-are-gul...
3•bookofjoe•17m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Agent wrapped, like Spotify wrapped

https://swarmpack.github.io/landing-page/
3•dheerusha_•19m ago•4 comments

NASA targets Artemis II crewed moon mission for April 1 launch

https://www.npr.org/2026/03/12/nx-s1-5746128/nasa-artemis-ii-april-launch
5•Brajeshwar•20m ago•0 comments

"Taxing the Threat Actors"

https://snowfroc.com/
1•mooreds•21m ago•0 comments

Vulnerabilities found in satellite receiver IDC SFX2100

https://www.abdulmhsblog.com/posts/sfx2100-vulns/
2•Harvesterify•21m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Should HN update this site guideline?

3•throwaway23293•21m ago•2 comments