Which fictional character prompts an LLM into speaking the plainest of English?
I’ve never been satisfied with the way that LLMs explain technical jargon, even if I ask for “plain English” it will have an annoying habit of including some other jargon or using very hard to parse explanations. This requires a further plain English explanation.[1]
Enter Homer Simpson, asking for “in the manner of Homer Simpson” makes the replies easier to understand. However they do lead to the gratuitous analogies to donuts or beer, and non-sequitur D’oh’s being thrown on the end. If I may be euphemistic, it appears that Homer Simpson’s characterized [2]lack of certain mental faculties, does push the LLM to abandon jargon and explain things simpler, clearer, in a much more colloquial and truly vernacular manner.
I was wondering if there’s any magic words someone has found to get the same effect without shoehorned references to donuts, or beer?
Ahh but what do I mean by “plain English”? And that is a fair question and perhaps my expectations of that expression do not match up to the optimal form of prompting for those expectations. What I’m really looking for are Intuition Pumps explained with a high ratio of Germanic-rooted words. Jargon tends to be obstructively Latinate. This is a strange paradox as Latin is probably older than Old English.
It seems to lean heavily on a very bad stereotype of the character—he’s a omnivore who likes donuts and beer and his catchphrase is “D’oh”. Cool. Got it. And I suppose the most important thing about Gregor Samsa is he’s an insect right? And Svengali and Trilby their beard and hat respectively? How often do LLMs Flanderize characters from fiction?
In Homer’s case, of all the replies generated there are no references to Krusty Burgers or Pork Chops, there’s no fearful sycophancy, cloying for his superiors, his analogies never refer to pranks pulled by a spikey haired son, there’s no misanthropic mistrust of the world, there’s no victim complex. Just donuts and beer, and once pizza.
Which fictional character prompts an LLM into speaking the plainest of English?
I’ve never been satisfied with the way that LLMs explain technical jargon, even if I ask for “plain English” it will have an annoying habit of including some other jargon or using very hard to parse explanations. This requires a further plain English explanation.[1]
Enter Homer Simpson, asking for “in the manner of Homer Simpson” makes the replies easier to understand. However they do lead to the gratuitous analogies to donuts or beer, and non-sequitur D’oh’s being thrown on the end. If I may be euphemistic, it appears that Homer Simpson’s characterized [2]lack of certain mental faculties, does push the LLM to abandon jargon and explain things simpler, clearer, in a much more colloquial and truly vernacular manner.
I was wondering if there’s any magic words someone has found to get the same effect without shoehorned references to donuts, or beer?
Ahh but what do I mean by “plain English”? And that is a fair question and perhaps my expectations of that expression do not match up to the optimal form of prompting for those expectations. What I’m really looking for are Intuition Pumps explained with a high ratio of Germanic-rooted words. Jargon tends to be obstructively Latinate. This is a strange paradox as Latin is probably older than Old English.
It seems to lean heavily on a very bad stereotype of the character—he’s a omnivore who likes donuts and beer and his catchphrase is “D’oh”. Cool. Got it. And I suppose the most important thing about Gregor Samsa is he’s an insect right? And Svengali and Trilby their beard and hat respectively? How often do LLMs Flanderize characters from fiction?
In Homer’s case, of all the replies generated there are no references to Krusty Burgers or Pork Chops, there’s no fearful sycophancy, cloying for his superiors, his analogies never refer to pranks pulled by a spikey haired son, there’s no misanthropic mistrust of the world, there’s no victim complex. Just donuts and beer, and once pizza.
“Explain as gwern ELI5”