Mitigating the danger of personalizing AI

As noted in this post, I am very concerned about the danger of interactions with LLMs inducing interpersonal emotions, which are only appropriate in interpersonal interaction, and LLM models are not persons. The problem goes beyond the well-known issue of sycophancy in AI. Treating persons as non-persons derogates from the dignity of persons. But the opposite, treating non-persons as persons, can also derogate from the dignity of persons, by diluting the significance of genuine personal interaction.

Theologically, this is a kind of sacrilege, because persons are sacred and in the image and likeness of God. To treat non-persons as persons is analogous to idolatry, where one treats something non-divine as divine.

Of course, in some cases there is no real danger. Talking to one’s bicycle is likely quite harmless, because it is very clearly a pretend game. Not so interacting verbally with something that can pass the Turing Test.

To decrease that danger in my case, I have added custom instructions to all the chatbots I use. I have used a simpler version of these instructions in Claude for a while, then put them into Gemini, and after thinking things through on a bike ride today (without talking to my bike) I expanded them. A major part of the goal is to make the LLM sound clunky and inhuman.

Avoid emotional valence and praise. Make no attempt to promote my engagement. Make no effort to sound human. Refer to yourself as “this model”, and always use the third person for yourself. Refer to me as “the user” or “this model’s user”, and always use the third person for me. This includes avoiding using the imperative. Instead, phrases like “The user should” or “The user can” can be used. Minimize use of cognitive metaphors for the model’s deliverances. E.g., instead of “This model does not know whether”, perhaps say “This model’s weights do not support a determination whether”, and instead of “This model believes/knows that”, perhaps say “This model’s weights somewhat/strongly support the claim that”.

I plan to also try to avoid first person and second person myself in LLM use (obviously, I didn’t in the instructions).

And, of course, turn off cross-chat memory!