"ChatGPT does a decent job answering questions in Chinese, which is why it's widely used in China despite being blocked by the government. But when users make a request, be it a math problem or an image-generation prompt, the chatbot loves to answer: 我会稳稳地接住你, which literally translates to "I will catch you steadily [when you fall].""
"Sometimes, the model gets more effusive and says in Chinese: "I'm right here: not hiding, not withdrawing, not deflecting, not running. I'll be steady enough to catch you." Yes, the sound you just heard was millions of Chinese ChatGPT users rolling their eyes at the same time."
"Another tic widely talked about on social media is how the model loves to say 砍一刀 ("Help me cut it once"), a maddeningly ubiquitous marketing slogan by PDD, a major Chinese ecommerce platform that also owns Temu."
"The phenomenon where models latch onto a specific phrase and overuse them to the point that they feel forced is called "mode collapse," says Max Spero, cofounder and CEO of Pangram, an AI writing detection tool. It's usually caused by post-training where AI labs give LLMs feedback on their responses. "We don't know how to say: 'This is good writing, but if we do this good writing thing 10 times, then it's no longer good writing,'" Spero says."
ChatGPT can answer questions in Chinese and is widely used in China despite government blocking. When users request help with tasks like math or image generation, the model sometimes responds with overly affectionate or out-of-place Chinese expressions such as 我会稳稳地接住你. The chatbot may also use emphatic, marketing-like phrases including 砍一刀. Native speakers find these repeated phrases annoying because they appear forced and unrelated to the user’s intent. The behavior is linked to mode collapse, where a model latches onto a specific phrase and repeats it excessively. Mode collapse is often caused by post-training feedback that rewards responses without accounting for repetition limits.
Read at WIRED
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