This happened to me too. I eliminated it in text responses, but eventually figured out that there's a system prompt in voice mode that says to do this (more or less) regardless of any instructions you give to the contrary. Attempting to override it will just make it increasingly awkward and obvious.
Might not be the best fix but other than disabling memory I changed the setting ‘ChatGPT personality’ to ‘Robot’ and I’ve always had straight to the point answers (so far).
I add "Terse, no commentary" to a request, which it will obey, but then immediately return to yammering in a follow-up message. However, this is in Incognito; maybe there's a setting when logged in.
You can add a custom instruction in settings. That works pretty well, applies to all chats. Memory feature I of course disabled as soon as it was released so I don't know which takes precedence.
Same. The GPT5 “Robot” persona does what no custom “be terse”, “no fluff”, etc. custom prompt ever could. It actually makes ChatGPT terse and to-the-point and eliminates (or at least greatly reduces) fluff. I love it.
First and foremost, ignore it. When you find yourself listening to it, distract yourself and immediately move on.
Secondly, add more white noise into your environment. The best approach I find is just opening a window or adding a little fan or water feature to your desk. White noise generators don’t work as well for me, but they can help in a pinch.
I believe that our modern day indoor environments are honestly just too unnaturally quiet anyway.
I’m not joking when I say that the only time I really get annoyed by my tinnitus is when the monthly “cure” for it gets posted on HN. ;-)
While "white noise" is the colloquial phrase, it's also a technical term that refers to a different noise spectrum – one that will do serious damage to your hearing if you listen to it loudly enough to do anything about tinnitus. (When played on ideal equipment, white noise has infinite energy – which is clearly not what you want to deliver to your ears.) You're probably thinking of brown noise, pink noise, or perceptually-weighted grey noise.
It’s not if Google can decide what content they want on YouTube.
The issue here is that the Biden Whitehouse was pressuring private companies to remove speech that they otherwise would host.
That's a clear violation of the first amendment. And we now know that the previous Whitehouse got people banned from all the major platforms: Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc.
They claim that the Biden admin pressured them to do it, except that they had been voluntarily doing it even during Trump's initial presidency.
The current administration has been openly threatening companies over anything and everything they don't like, it isn't surprising all of the tech companies are claiming they actually support the first amendment and were forced by one of the current administration's favorite scapegoats to censor things.
The political right have no principles and were actively cheering on FCC censorship when this story initially broke. Why should anyone care what they ostensibly think?
I disagree. Trump, IMO, has been a cult-like leader for the GOP since 2016. And he even called for more networks to lose their licenses over "dishonesty" after this incident[0]. Not to mention the multitude of scandals that we've seen like: law firm security clearance revocation as retribution for supporting Trump's opponents, deporting legal residents over their protest against Israel, and various lawsuits he's engaged in as President against media corporations, pollsters, etc.. who disfavour him[1].
> Many voices did not cheer it but called it for what it was
"many" is Tucker Carlson and Ted Cruz? To my knowledge, they haven't called out Trump specifically for attacks on the First Amendment, only Brendan Carr. That's fine and dandy, but no one on the right seems willing to take the plunge for some reason on the huge array of issues that cropped up before this FCC threat against ABC.
I think rank and file folks are waking up a bit. Things are hard in the economy and tgey are seeing their moms, aunts, sisters, and daughters get impacted by reductions to women's healthcare.
I don't think so at all. I think some are waking up to the fact that Trump is becoming a liability and that his time is limited. They're preparing to shift to someone else who is just as bad, if not worse, such as Vance.
Nobody has any principles here my friend. There is a long list of people canceled for making content that displeased the Democrats, and now a few murders too.
But yes, apparently everyone hates Disney and wants them to go bankrupt. So finally the left and right agree on one thing.
Unfortunately for Kimmel, late night TV is irrelevant dinosaur so he better extract as much money as he can before he inevitably ends up like Colbert.
"long list of people canceled for making content that displeased the Democrats"
If we exclude the people advocating violence and discrimination against others due to their immutable characteristics, we find that its not such a "long" list after all.
Comments by government officials aren't protected free speech because government officials control policy.
There have been market panics ended by the right words at the right time. It's a different kind of speech entirely from criticism of the government by those without direct political power.
When Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr suggested Jimmy Kimmel should be suspended and said, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” ABC and its local affiliates were listening.
On Wednesday afternoon, Carr tapped into preexisting MAGA media anger about a Monday night Kimmel monologue and used a right-wing podcaster’s platform to blast Kimmel and pressure ABC’s parent company Disney.
Those are the actions he took as an official at the FCC.
If they'd issued an order, it wouldn't be final until it reached SCOTUS! Most regulatory interaction happens informally. A regulator tells a regulated entity to do something, and they do it. Public statements by the FCC commissioner are significant enough to make it into court cases as evidence of the Commision's intent.
That's not "goal post reconstruction". Someone said the FCC took actions. I thought I might have missed them actually _doing_ something, so I was asking about it. The response was to highlight the statements they said.
The point is the FCC Chair making public statements threatening specific regulatory actions against a regulated entity is an action. You're trying to hold the word action to a higher standard than a judge would. The Rubicon was crossed.
> You're certainly very sure of what I was thinking, but you are again wrong
Nope. You're confusing regulatory actions, broadly, with official actions. The FCC didn't take any official action. The FCC Chair absolutely conveyed a credible threat of official action in response to specific political speech; that constitutes a regulatory action.
Like, the SEC announcing they're going to launch an investigation is a regulatory action. The Fed Chair saying they believe the job market is cooling is a regulatory action.
> The decision was guided by what was in the entertainment company's best interest, rather than external pressure from station owners or the FCC, the sources said.
From today's statement: "Last Wednesday, we [Disney] made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country" [1].
We shouldn’t need to clarify this, but Tim Allen and Roseanne Bar were not threatened by high-ranking government officials, right?
These are two completely different situations. If conservatives want to vote with their dollars and boycott Disney, that’s something I wholeheartedly support. If they want to use their power as federal officials to silence voices they disagree with, that’s unacceptable.
> The political right in this country would love for Disney to be boycotted - just saying
Don't care.
We've got two groups of people in this country: those willing to sacrifice our republic for personal enrichment and those who won't bend the knee. (The former need to be heavily investigated over the coming decade, mostly so we can write statute that makes their behaviour criminal in the future.)
The issue most people have with Disney's behavior is that they didn't even attempt to fight.
It's one thing to say "We're going to comply for now, but here are the things we'll be doing to push back..."
Attempting to can Kimmel because he said something the President doesn't like and because it's politically/economically convenient for Disney, without doing anything else?
Discussion about Wikipedia not actually being in financial jeopardy has been around for some time, and I remember reading about it at least once a year, during the donation banner season. Here are a few sources that discuss them.
I'm sure this will be painful for a lot of people and that sucks.
But drop-shipping into the U.S. has been absurdly one-sided for years. Americans have been subsidizing it through taxes and mailing rates our own government negotiated, and that basically fucked over American small businesses for decades.
It’s been dramatically cheaper to ship items from Shenzhen to Anytown, USA than to mail something across town. That killed domestic mail-order growth and flooded us with mountains of plastic Temu junk instead.
It's obvious that it should be more expensive to ship from China to the US than from the US to the US. It no longer makes sense to subsidize these rates and the entire system needs to be rethought.
Do you have any examples? I've noticed something similar with memes and slang, they'll sometimes popularize an existing old word that wasn't too common before. This is my first time hearing AI might be doing it.
I've seen it a lot in older people's writing in different cultures before trump became relevant. It's either all caps or bold for some words in middle of sentence. Seems to be pronounced more in those who have aged less gracefully in terms of mental ability (not trying to make any implication, just my observation) but maybe it's just a generational thing.
I've seen this pattern ape'd by a lot of younger people in the Trumpzone, so maybe it has its origins in the older dementia patients, but it has been adopted as the tone and writing style of the authoritarian right.
That type of writing has been in the tabloid press in the U.K. for decades, especially the section that aims more at older people, and that currently (and for a good 15 years) skews heavily to the populist right.
Nah Trump has a very obvious cadence to his speech / writing patterns that has essentially become part of his brand, so much so that you can easily train LLM's to copy it.
It reads more like angry grandpa chain mail with a "healthy" dose of dementia than what you would typically associate with terminally online micro cultures you see on reddit/tiktok/4chan.
Europe has repeatedly tried to soak the rich, and the results are always the same: the rich move their wealth somewhere else and you end up breaking even or even reducing your tax revenue.
Explain to me the benefit of attracting the wealthy if they don't pay tax?
Come to our country - have our police and courts and soldiers protect you wealth - all for free.
Oh - and because you are not paying tax - can I borrow some of that wealth please so I can pay for the stuff I'm providing for you free - I'll give you a healthy return.
The rich benefit the most from civilisation - and it costs - you can't just keep running from country to country hollowing it out for ever - eventually there will be nowhere left you can free ride.
Oh and in terms of the charts where you increase a particular tax and revenue goes up in the short term and down later - that's because people adapt - they find new ways to avoid tax ( yep including to pretend to have left the country ).
Just bwcause they run, that's not a reason to stop pursing them.
> Explain to me the benefit of attracting the wealthy if they don't pay tax?
You've fallen victim to the false dichotomy. I don't see anyone argue the wealthy shouldn't pay any tax at all.
This renders the 2nd paragraph wrong. And then 3rd paragraph wrong too.
> you can't just keep running from country to country hollowing it out for ever - eventually there will be nowhere left you can free ride.
Depends how much time it takes to run from one country to another, and what you mean by "for ever" - if it takes you a year to move from one country to another and you live for 100 years, you need 100 countries. Pardon my humorous remark, I know this is not the point; but the actual argument is easier to counter: we don't have a single government for the Earth. We don't have a united dominating force to unify taxes in one civilization and sanction or isolate from the other civilizations for hosting the rich.
IMO the education is poor, producing stupid societies electing the governments which are incompetent, corrupt and largely sympathizing with the rich.
They should pay in proportion to the amount of value they capture - having in effect, much lower margin rates the wealthier you are doesn't help pay the bills or maintain some sort of meritocracy.
And sure - while you could move from one country to another like a parasite finding a new host, and cycle around as the original host recovers - the key questions is whether that results in a few people owning more and more as a result, and paying a lower and lower marginal rate until civilisation collapses. ( or the rich decide to take the rains of power instead to keep the society they benefit from so hugely afloat ).
> IMO the education is poor, producing stupid societies electing the governments which are incompetent, corrupt and largely sympathizing with the rich.
I think you underestimate the level to which the rich judicously share their wealth in order to influence people and policy.
Until they lobby hard enough to have a reduced VAT on luxury goods as it happened in France. The argument being, you guessed it, otherwise they would buy stuff elsewhere.
Your "Swedish" source appears to conclude that the wealth tax is effective, but suffered from loopholes and lack of enforcement. Why not fix those rather than follow your "real plan"?
Also your UK link does not support your argument:
> Weaker-than-expected tax liabilities from additional rate taxpayers are not necessarily an indicator of an unexpectedly low yield from the 50p rate. Incomes for those earning above £150,000 could be depressed for other reasons. For example, high income earners are more likely to derive a higher proportion of income from savings, dividends and other investments – and these have been much weaker in recent years than employment income.
>Europe has repeatedly tried to soak the rich, and the results are always the same:
Yes, the results are always the same: Europe consistently runs lower budget deficits, yet provides greater benefits to their citizens. How awful for them.
They spend less than the US as a percentage of GDP, yes, but they don't spend zero: 2.5% or so vs our 4%. But who's to say they aren't right and we're wrong? Think about the cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars. Good investments?
Isn't it a 50% inclusion rate for capital gains in Canada? That works out to a maximum tax rate of 27% in the top tax bracket. And they canceled the proposed increase to a 66% inclusion rate, which is probably smart considering how a ton of rich Canadians already move to Florida.
The corrolay of this would be that as soon as money enters a "rich-only" ecosystem, it's essentially gone forever for the wider population. I don't see how this would be a desirable outcome.
It creates rich-people dollars and poor-people dollars. The poor people can still afford a buy a few necessities because rich-people money is tied up in useless vain endeavors, at least to some extent. If rich were to direct all their purchasing power toward real goods they could drive up the prices and make it unaffordable for regular people. As happens with the housing market to some extent.
All demand is not created equal. The rich buy more houses than they need for shelter, in order to produce income. This essentially creates an artificial shortage of homes for purchase by actual homeowners. I believe that is what the commenter was referring to.
> Europe has repeatedly tried to soak the rich, and the results are always the same: the rich move their wealth somewhere else and you end up breaking even or even reducing your tax revenue.
Why can't they tax something that _cant_ be moved elsewhere, like property ownership?
Raising taxes generally raises money. In some cases it can lead to capital flight but that’s hardly some universal economic rule.
But besides raising capital, taxation reduces wealth inequality, which is itself beneficial as it makes society more democratic. Reducing wealth inequality reduces the concentration of power, which is better for everyone (except for the 1%).
Still, when redistributing wealth, it’s prudent to address the risk of capital flight. It’s not an insurmountable challenge. Policy can address it through: 1) financial controls 2) coordinated international efforts to raise taxes on the wealthy, and 3) harsher measures like nationalization and capital levies.
Something to point out also is that more equality is actually better even for the 1%. They are just too short-term-focused and greedy to see that. There is nothing they can get today that they wouldn’t be able to get tomorrow if we taxed them appropriately. In return, they would live in a more stable and safe society, a less brittle economy, and wouldn’t be as reviled socially. But they are just too focused on their net worth to see that.
Your links are 2 about speculation on how business will react, and one real paper that discovers that rich people lie more to avoid taxes when your tax rate increases.
Nothing at all supports that "the rich move their wealth somewhere else"
That's because, as a singular planetary species, that story is a myth. The rich only maintain wealth by exploiting people against each other, thus deterring actions against the rich who likely caused the issue in the first place.
Lack of housing because it's a profitable investment class that rises in value due to lack of supply? Obviously it's the fault of NIMBYs alone and not political policy pushed by lobbying groups.
Healthcare too expensive? Totally not the fault of private equity bleeding care networks dry and public health insurance companies denying coverage to fund share buybacks and CEO raises, so it must be nurses striking for pay or the government for paying too little on Medicare.
The point is that if enough rich countries said "fuck this shit, pay up and fuck off out of politics forever", the rich can't leave. They're stuck here, on Earth, with the poors. That's not going to change anytime soon, so the only thing stopping these countries from reigning the issue in is cowardice.
But do you have actual evidence that we need it? (Instead of just "nice to have".) Because everybody just repeats that without evidence, like the OP.
There are plenty of reasons to expect the OP's prediction not to hold. I don't know how things play out in practice, and I don't think I've ever seen anybody that knows it.
The IRS taxes americans no matter where they are or where they take their money. The US is only one of two nations in the world with citizenshp based taxation. And if you want to renounce your citizenship, 35% exit tax. The only solution is to make a foreign corporation (Apple keeps its income in Ireland for example) and hide your money there (The City of London does a brisk business setting up corps in their old colonies - when the IRS comes knocking, the City of London plays dumb)
It's also not that simple for an individual. If you own more than 10% of the corporation you get hit with CFC rules, a base 37% tax on gains. Or PFIC rules if it's passive.
If you think the US has a debt problem, the Eurozone is much worse. At least America has economic growth along with debt growth. The EU has slightly less debt but zero economic growth and almost zero population growth (and negative organic population growth).
Africa's GDP is tiny and will not a serious contender for any sort of reserve currency status for many decades. I can't imagine a wave of automation will do anything positive for most of Africa.
Growth is over globally except India and Africa due to demographics [1]. Developed countries and unions will compete for the last of the world’s young, prime age workers over the next century. Financial stability will be a function of who manages this situation to the best of their circumstances. Can you attract and retain these workers and leverage that for economic success? If so, that’s where investment will flow and capital will remain invested. My thesis is Europe is best positioned to succeed in the near term, based on the above.
Sibling comment mentions Europe needs the US for energy; Canada has known fossil gas reserves of ~200 years and LNG export capabilities, and Europe is scheduled to end Russian fossil gas consumption in 2027 [2]. The world is deploying 1GW of solar every 15 hours; like the rest of the world, everyone will arrive at energy independence/sovereignty eventually through cheap renewables (solar primarily, but also wind) and battery storage (LFP and sodium most likely, as of this comment) exported by China to the world. China is also selling inexpensive EVs to as many global consumers as they can find (while internal sales of battery electric and hybrids is already at ~50% this year). This leads me to believe the future of US oil and gas is an internal petrostate similar to Russia, not an energy exporter of relevance far into the future.
Having billions of low-skill "prime age workers" is not a good thing in the AI era. Africa's population surge is a liability as much as it is a benefit, especially considering they already have to import a large portion of their food supplies. Africa is 20% of world population but just 2% of world GDP... Maybe they will turn into China at some point, but I wouldn't bet on it yet.
> Africa's population surge is a liability as much as it is a benefit, especially considering they already have to import a large portion of their food supplies.
They also need to import phones, dishwashers, and cars. But how many cars do you really use? How many phones?
Africa's population growth is projected to drive steady demand for consumer products, while the West and parts of Asia are expected to see a decline.
They have abundant natural resources, and they’re likely to become the cheapest labor force after countries like Vietnam and Thailand see rising wages and living standards.
We’re already seeing this in China, where wage growth is pushing some manufacturing to neighboring, lower cost countries.
Demand is ultimately limited by the number of people. You can produce as many goods as you want using AI powered factories but without demand, they’ll just end up in the garbage.
AI era remains to be proven to not be bullshit. If it turns on to be something of value and not pets.com and webvan 2.0, prime age workers should be provided training and hiring pipelines for jobs AI cannot do: healthcare, construction, infrastructure, housing, agriculture scaling, etc. Knowledge/white collar jobs are most at risk with LLMs, not work building society up and operating it in the physical world.
If you think an LLM is a thinking machine, I don’t know what to tell you. They are great at predicting tokens, but there is no evidence they are thinking in the human sense. They rely on patterns and probabilities, not understanding. Powerful search engines, certainly, but there is much work ahead to see how hard the limits being bumped up against are.
> As someone that has sold a bunch of LLM enabled software over the past 6 months, I don’t really buy the AI capex turning into huge productivity gains. Everything to date are just chatbots with RAG and API calls. None of them are going to do my laundry or file my taxes.
Without getting hung up on the definition of the word "think", the fact that anyone can feed an LLM a couple of bullet points and generate a pile of convincing sounding marketing copy, is worth something if you're to someone. We can disagree on exactly how much and to whom, but if you're not willing to see that as fact then there's no common ground to base a conversation on.
It's under appreciated that some jobs being trivially done by LLMs doesn't mean that all jobs are trivially done by LLMs.
Low-value-add marketing copy, for example, being automated changes... what? Now LLM-generated copy is the new minimal-cost baseline, and everyone adapts to the new normal.
The real killer feature will be autonomous business planning, but we're a long way from there.
Even Europe has huge parts of their economy backed by the USA.
NATO funding, drug R&D and subsidized pricing, even sovereign wealth funds are invested in the USA. Their only energy option outside of the USA is Russia.
Postwar Europe as we know it does not exist without the USA.
I often get annoyed with ChatGPT yammering on and on, so I repeatedly told it to cut to the chase and speak more succinctly.
Now it just says "I'll get right to the point..." and then still yammers on and on unabated.