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.

But Nothing Has Changed on Our Side

https://cacm.acm.org/blogcacm/but-nothing-has-changed-on-our-side/
1•visha1v•1m ago•1 comments

I can build anything, but only the void sees it

1•urbanogt5•4m ago•0 comments

AI researchers ran a secret experiment on Reddit users (2025)

https://www.livescience.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/ai-researchers-ran-a-secret-experi...
1•rolph•7m ago•1 comments

Verizon is About to Break our Watches

https://www.jefftk.com/p/verizon-is-about-to-break-our-watches
1•jefftk•8m ago•0 comments

AI bots ignore evidence. Can we trust them with science?

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ai-ignore-evidence-trust-science
1•rolph•9m ago•0 comments

1-click-unpaywall Bookmarklet via Nopaywall.net

https://www.nopaywall.net/bookmarklet
1•MajesticWombat•12m ago•0 comments

What do nuns give up

https://silvestro2026.substack.com/p/what-do-catholic-nuns-give-up
1•silvestromedia•15m ago•0 comments

Moe Estimator – Simulate decode speed with layer-major prefetch hiding

https://www.agrillo.it/AI/Calculators/MOE-tieredstreaming.html
1•ConteMascetti71•18m ago•0 comments

Microsoft GDID telemetry includes full browsing and gaming history

https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/1undrrd/microsoft_gdid_tracks_all_windows_installations/
2•jjbinx007•20m ago•0 comments

Show HN: A home for short stories generated from 5 random emojis

https://www.moon-zine.net/
1•riedhes•21m ago•0 comments

Reading Is Fun

https://github.com/baturyilmaz/readingisfun
1•k3030•23m ago•0 comments

BareMetal RAM Dumper – Bare-metal x86 tool for Cold Boot Attack experiments

https://github.com/pIat0n/BareMetal-RAM-Dumper
5•liffik•23m ago•0 comments

Spending a Day on Sweden's $200M Stealth Warship [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5lHWgMmrt8
1•dataflow•25m ago•0 comments

Zenú Gold: Reassessing Matriarchy in Pre-Contact Colombia (2025)

https://archaeolog.substack.com/p/zenu-gold-reassessing-matriarchy
1•BaseBaal•27m ago•0 comments

Historic Photos of NASA's Cavernous Wind Tunnels

https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/05/historic-photos-of-nasas-cavernous-wind-tunnels/560660/
1•ohjeez•32m ago•0 comments

Why don't people use Git properly?

https://deadsimpletech.com/blog/why-dont-people-use-git-properly
2•mmphosis•32m ago•2 comments

AI Has Hacked the Code of Human Civilization – Yuval Noah Harari

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBtVGwuJzpk
1•doener•36m ago•0 comments

Sick leave: Germany rising but not the worst in Europe

https://www.dw.com/en/sick-leave-germany-rising-but-not-the-worst-in-europe/a-77815488
5•bushwart•42m ago•0 comments

What should a personal website be?

https://ratfactor.com/cards/personal-website
1•tolerance•42m ago•1 comments

Elon Musk posted twice as often on UK race and immigration as about SpaceX IPO

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jul/04/elon-musk-uk-race-immigration-spacex-ipo
9•iamflimflam1•43m ago•0 comments

National Institute of Standards and Technology | NIST | Official US Time

https://time.gov/
1•Bender•43m ago•0 comments

No more than 100 000 faint satellites should orbit Earth

https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2607/
8•Breadmaker•43m ago•0 comments

Review-flow – automate 80% of code review so humans focus on the 20%

https://github.com/DGouron/review-flow
2•DGouron•44m ago•0 comments

Lessons from a Year of Exploring Common Ground

https://americans-agree.org/insights/lessons-from-a-year-of-exploring-common-ground
2•quadtree•46m ago•0 comments

Only 1 of the Top 5 AI Coding Models on WebDev Arena Isn't Chinese

https://arena.ai/leaderboard/code/webdev?rankBy=labs
4•SweetSoftPillow•47m ago•1 comments

Using Local Coding Agents – By Sebastian Raschka, PhD

https://magazine.sebastianraschka.com/p/using-local-coding-agents
2•rbanffy•49m ago•0 comments

Game Boy Advance Dev: Logging to the Console

https://www.mattgreer.dev/blog/gba-dev-logging/
1•jandeboevrie•49m ago•0 comments

Shipping post-quantum cryptography to Python – The Trail of Bits Blog

https://blog.trailofbits.com/2026/06/30/shipping-post-quantum-cryptography-to-python/
2•rbanffy•49m ago•0 comments

MITS - Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems

https://www.abortretry.fail/p/micro-instrumentation-and-telemetry
2•rbanffy•52m ago•0 comments

EndBASIC 0.14: Are we multimedia yet?

https://www.endbasic.dev/2026/07/endbasic-0.14.html
2•jmmv•53m ago•0 comments