GPT4-Turbo doesn't listen to instructions

Prompting
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1

I’ve been trying to get GPT4-Turbo to listen to my prompt for a few days now.

This is my prompt:

List of things you must not do:
- Do not create a summary of the topic.
- Continue to develop content until you have exhausted the topic.

If you break these rules, you will be severely punished!

You will be given a headline text and your task will be to create a paragraph as follows:
- Write a detailed paragraph that discusses the topic in depth.
- The text must contain between 1,800 and 2,500 characters.
- Start with a clear and concise introduction that captures the essence of the topic.
- Develop the topic by providing comprehensive and insightful information.
- Maintain a consistent tone and style throughout the paragraph.
- Avoid unnecessary details that do not contribute to the main discussion.
- Ensure that the paragraph is logically structured, easy to read, and informative.

NEVER CREATE A SUMMARY OF THE TOPIC and follow the instructions in the system message!

Create text about:

He always creates a summary for me at the end.
I can’t get it to stop doing this.
My settings:

Temperature: 0.7
ToP: 0.6
Frequency: 0.3
Presence: 0.5

Can I ask for help? I don’t know how to handle this, it doesn’t want a summary at the end.

He wants to achieve the creation of a paragraph based on the topic given to him. Also, if anyone has knowledge of editorial content creation and can make a difference in my prompt then thank you very much.

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2

The models are not instruction following machines. If you want something better aligned with that job, try gpt-3.5-turbo-instruct.

3

I just ran the tests and got the same result. :frowning:

4

Looking at your message to the model here’s my suggestions,

  1. All this can go,

List of things you must not do:

  • Do not create a summary of the topic.
  • Continue to develop content until you have exhausted the topic.

If you break these rules, you will be severely punished!

Don’t start with the “do not” list. It’s confusing to both computers and humans.

  1. Give the model a name and a role
    Something like, “You are CopywriterGPT, your purpose is to write a detailed, interesting, and insightful article to fit the given headline.”
    Instead you just start giving instructions.

You will be given a headline text and your task will be to create a paragraph as follows:

  1. Many of your instructions seem unnecessary, redundant, contradictory, or confusing
  • Write a detailed paragraph that discusses the topic in depth.

Paragraphs don’t discuss anything, “covers,” “explores,” “captures,” etc are probably better.

  • The text must contain between 1,800 and 2,500 characters.

That’s a very long paragraph. You also wouldn’t want to cover an entire subject in detail in a single paragraph.

  • Start with a clear and concise introduction that captures the essence of the topic.

This is probably unnecessary, this is how writing is typically done.

  • Develop the topic by providing comprehensive and insightful information.

Also probably unneeded.

  • Maintain a consistent tone and style throughout the paragraph.

Unneeded.

  • Avoid unnecessary details that do not contribute to the main discussion.

Confusing. Also a negative instruction which the models perform poorly with.

  • Ensure that the paragraph is logically structured, easy to read, and informative.

Unneeded.

NEVER CREATE A SUMMARY OF THE TOPIC and follow the instructions in the system message!

Confusing and contradictory. You want the model to write 2–3 (standard) paragraph of text about a subject, based on a headline and you don’t want it to be a summary?

Do you have a piece of example writing that is exactly what you want the model to be able to produce and a headline you think should inspire it?

Because, right now I don’t think I could successfully write something that does what you want because I’m very unclear what that is.

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