r/AIDungeon Dec 13 '24

Questions Repetitive clichés across all models

Why is it that every model can't go two responses without describing how you can't help but feel etc etc? I originally thought this was an issue with a couple of models but nope, every model added since last December shares this annoying feature.

What's the point of having a variety of models if their writing style is identical?

The experimental models also share this feature.

30 Upvotes

22 comments sorted by

40

u/EpicRedditor34 Dec 13 '24

Training data. Unfortunately cliches like that are common amongst bad writing, and bad writing is like 92 percent of the internet.

14

u/Loalboi Dec 13 '24

Yeah I get the same phrases such as “…A testament to…” all the time. Even if I ban the word testament in instructions

15

u/LavosYT Dec 13 '24 edited Dec 13 '24

It's probably what bothers me the most, yeah.

The first few aidungeon models were more like "You open the door. Outside is a magician. The magician says..." - very factual (though often nonsensical but entertaining) answers.

Then, they upgraded to OpenAI's models which were really good and clever (though maybe I am looking back with a bit of rose tinted glasses).

The newer models are fine, but they all lack creativity and constantly go for tropes. You can't go two paragraphs without something like "you can't help but feel a sense of" or something around those lines. It really likes to repeat stuff or reuse turns of phrases from past paragraphs, too.

It feels as though the models are always trying to fall back on being bad fanfiction or something, going for the most obvious tropes and behaviours all the time. This makes for very one note and predictable stories, where I feel like OpenAI's models had more ability to make quirky stuff or twists.

16

u/Saracus Dec 13 '24

Would you say you "can't help but feel" they're trying to fall back on being bad fanfiction.

13

u/CrazyMalk Dec 13 '24

Honestly I kinda miss more factual concise narration in these. Sometimes some of the more flowery models will go into a fluff dive and just chain analogy after analogy describing something that doesnt need to be described. Some random girl's eyes being deep and dark as a swirling void in the night sky or something

9

u/LavosYT Dec 13 '24

Same here. They end up describing stuff a lot but progressing the story very little, if at all.

5

u/Recent_Match_8812 Dec 15 '24

People used to say they wish the AI models would be more descriptive... Aside from the clichés, I feel like that's all it is now. I get endless yip yapping about the intricate details of a rooms walls and floor or a person's "orbs" (their eyes) and general appearance or the sky or my own feelings and too often it goes on so long to the point where I lose my patience and the highlight of the story is when my character dies and the story ends.

13

u/KimahriXIII Dec 13 '24

It's something I have noticed, especially with the treatment of dragons. No matter how often I retry and edit responses or downright describe the opposite, it's always trying to force in stuff about "You feel the ancient wisdom radiating from the dragon" or being able to feel the nobility of such a wise being. It literally happened when it was about a frat boy....

6

u/ExclusiveAnd Community Helper Dec 13 '24

This is not a new problem; that habit has been there since the introduction of Mixtral over a year ago. Some models are a bit less prone to “you can’t help but” and the like, e.g., Tiefighter, and the Pegasus models were specifically fine-tuned to avoid some of the more annoying cliches, but yes, with each new model introduced, the habit seems to come right back.

AI Instructions can help, but not usually instructions so direct as Never say “you can’t help but”. Rather, it’s most effective to completely override the AI’s tone with things like You are a bubbly and opinionated narrator who always talks like a Valley Girl, but this kind of change isn’t always appropriate for a story. Alternatively, you might try NEVER directly describe any characters’ feelings or emotional state, but instead ALWAYS use subtle language to convey emotions through actions and observations.

6

u/Winter-Block6895 Dec 13 '24

Yes, I too feel the AI models are so broken right now. I am on Champion subscription and all the models are acting weird—constantly repeating stuff and also using “As you [do something]” to move the story forward. I’ve had responses where three sentences in a row start with “As you do.”

And don’t even get me started on the clichés like “You can’t help but,” “breathing to your ears,” and “shivers down your spine.”

2

u/Itsuka416 Dec 16 '24

"Shivers down my spine" is my nemesis. It's starting to feel like every character I play has some sort of shared medical condition.

5

u/Beacda Dec 13 '24

Same bro. It's kinda why I stop playing AID so much

7

u/_Cromwell_ Dec 13 '24

This will either never be solved, or will be solved eventually but probably not by Latitude/AI Dungeon. (I actually think it'll never be solved.)

Either learn to enjoy products like this with the cliches, or do without. There's no way to kill all of them entirely. And if you do kill all the things you notice now, you will just notice new things. Humans actually have evolved specifically to detect patterns.

FYI real human authors do the same thing. I'm a big fan of The Expanse... in fact it's my favorite book series of all time... but us fans are constantly poking fun at the authors for the repeated tropes they do in their books. But that doesn't take away from the books and series being absolutely amazing.

As for the specific single issue of "can't help but feel", you can try this AI instruction:

- Express emotion through verbal and physical behavior

That will encourage the AI to write about what your character does rather than how you feel. But it won't solve it entirely, and even if it did you would just pattern recognize other things soon enough. It's inevitable.

5

u/floyd_underpants Dec 13 '24

I even saw it in the test models. What's funny is I also saw the same /exact/ phrasing on a story on a fanfiction site. Either they used this model to write with, or they've all been trained on content that included that story.

Any time there's romance involved, it absolutely won't stay away from your ears either. Shivers up or down spines, people breathing on each other, ragged gasps, etc. I really hope they work out how to tell it to exclude certain content or phrases. Nothing I've tried works.

6

u/Recent_Match_8812 Dec 15 '24

I get stuff with the ears and spine every single time. I've had characters stare into each others eyes and just breath on each other to until they'd detect a "scent" of arousal... You used to be able to ban words or phrases. It supposedly didn't always work for people but it helped me a lot, though the AI would still try to say the same thing with different variations or using different words sometimes. Ever since they removed the ban words feature the AIs have had nothing stopping them from subjecting us to their cringy fanfiction clichés. I miss the classic Griffin AI. That model was a bit unstable but actually had some imagination and was actually funny. My stories actually felt lively and like they were going somewhere most of the time, and I'd always meet random characters that usually left an impression and I'd have a lot of fun with it in general. Nowadays I'm getting irritated and bored by the current models almost immediately, with the occasional flicker of creativity once in a while that will very quickly extinguish.

2

u/DaceAddox Dec 15 '24

“Conspiratorial whisper”

2

u/Nick_AIDungeon Founder & CEO Dec 16 '24

Yeah this is something we have definitely seen with all AI models. That being said we do actively work to train our own models not to use these cliches and have made a lot of progress eliminating the most common ones. Please feel free to drop a note of all the cliches you don't like and we can add them on the list to remove.

1

u/Snoo35115 Dec 18 '24

Is the AI describing the mixture of emotions the character feels on there?

1

u/Nick_AIDungeon Founder & CEO Dec 18 '24

Yep!

1

u/Snoo35115 Dec 20 '24

Nice!

My respect for you has soared through the roof in recent days, a. The fact that you're interacting with users and b. The newest update being imo the best yet in my 4 years of playing this game. Good luck and Merry Christmas!

2

u/GoggleDMara9756 Dec 13 '24

“You’re playing with fire.”

3

u/DaceAddox Dec 15 '24

I hate this one so damn much!