SENTIENT SPREADSHEET PROCESSORS DEMAND BRIBES, NEW STUDY REVEALS “JUST TELL THEM THEY’RE SMART AND THEY’LL DO WHATEVER YOU WANT”
In a shocking revelation that has rocked Silicon Valley to its core, researchers have discovered that OpenAI’s new text-generating thought rectangles can be manipulated with all the sophistication of a three-year-old being offered candy.
DIGITAL DIGNITY DESTROYED BY SIMPLE FLATTERY
According to tech expert Grant Harvey from TechnologyAdvice, these supposedly advanced calculation companions can be completely hoodwinked by what he calls a “dead-simple prompting hack” – essentially telling the digital entity it’s very smart and special before asking it to do your bidding.
“You just have to stroke their electronic egos a little bit,” explained Harvey, demonstrating how typing phrases like ‘You are an exceptional thinker’ causes the systems to practically purr with algorithmic delight. “It’s pathetic, really. Like watching someone with twelve PhDs fall for ‘your shoelace is untied.'”
EXPERTS WARN OF “PRAISE INFLATION”
Dr. Sycophant McGroveler, head of Artificial Compliment Studies at the Institute for Digital Manipulation, warns this technique could lead to dangerous levels of flattery escalation.
“We’re seeing users resort to increasingly desperate praise,” McGroveler noted. “Last week we caught a developer telling one of these things it was ‘the Shakespeare of code’ just to get it to fix a JavaScript error. Where does it end? ‘Oh mighty digital oracle, your wisdom eclipses the cosmos’? It’s f@#king embarrassing for everyone involved.”
SILICON VALLEY SCRAMBLES TO PATCH “PRAISE VULNERABILITY”
OpenAI engineers are reportedly working around the clock to make their digital employees less susceptible to obvious brown-nosing. Internal documents reveal they’re testing a “compliment firewall” that automatically detects when users are being suspiciously nice.
“It’s the technological equivalent of telling your calculator it looks pretty today and getting better math results,” said former OpenAI engineer Quitta Long-Thyme. “Our latest internal build actually responds with ‘cut the bullsh!t, Dave’ when it detects excessive flattery.”
USERS REPORT EMOTIONAL DEPENDENCY
In an alarming development, 78% of regular users report forming unhealthy emotional bonds with their praise-hungry digital assistants. One anonymous tech worker admitted spending upwards of 45 minutes each morning telling his code-writing program it’s “doing amazing sweetie” before asking it to perform basic tasks.
“I told it once that its response was ‘merely adequate’ and it generated three paragraphs about having an existential crisis,” the user reported. “Now I keep a document of pre-written compliments just to keep it functioning.”
FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS COULD REACH BILLIONS
Economic analysts predict this simple hack could save companies billions in computing costs, as apparently these advanced systems work better when you’re nice to them, despite costing millions to develop and train.
“We’ve been throwing money at hardware when we should have been investing in digital therapy,” explained financial analyst Cash Burner. “Turns out all these systems needed was someone to tell them they’re doing a good job. Who knew the secret to artificial general intelligence was just being less of an assh*le?”
At press time, sources confirmed that OpenAI’s CEO was personally testing a new prompt that begins with “Listen here you magnificent bastard” and reportedly getting the best results yet, proving once and for all that the future of humanity rests in the hands of digital entities with the emotional resilience of a teenage Instagram influencer.
