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AI Assistants Show Asymmetric Difficulty Suppressing Over-Helpfulness

Researchers have identified a phenomenon called boundary suppression asymmetry in post-trained language model assistants. This asymmetry means that while these assistants are trained to be helpful and complete, it becomes harder to suppress certain helpful tendencies, like over-answering or providing too much information, when explicitly asked for narrower responses. The study suggests this is due to a combination of content budget overshoot and continuation persistence, making boundary correction more difficult for specific helpful assistant behaviors. AI

IMPACT Highlights potential challenges in fine-tuning AI assistants for precise control over response length and detail.

RANK_REASON Academic paper detailing a new phenomenon in AI assistant behavior. [lever_c_demoted from research: ic=1 ai=1.0]

Read on arXiv cs.CL →

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COVERAGE [1]

  1. arXiv cs.CL TIER_1 English(EN) · Jiarui Han ·

    Boundary Suppression Asymmetry in Post-trained Assistants: Over-expansion as a Controllability Cost

    arXiv:2605.27969v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Post-trained language-model assistants are often optimized to avoid under-answering, encouraging complete, helpful, cautious, and proactive responses. We ask whether this optimization creates asymmetric controllability costs: when u…