Tell HN: OpenAI silently removed Study Mode from ChatGPT

by smokel 78 comments 189 points
Read article View on HN

78 comments

[−] brumar 33d ago
After all, this "mode" was just a system prompt (last time I looked).
[−] toomanyrichies 33d ago
Your comment made me ask myself: "Then why remove it? If it really is just a system prompt, I can't imagine tech debt or maintenance are among the reasons."

My best guess is this is product strategy. A markdown file doesn't require maintenance, but a feature's surface area does. Every exposed mode is another thing to document, support, A/B test, and explain to new users who stumble across it. I'm guessing that someone decided "Study Mode isn't hitting retention metrics", and decided to kill it. As an autodidact, I loved the feature, but as a software engineer I can respect the decision.

What I'm wondering about is whether there's a security angle to this as well. Assuming exposed system prompts are a jailbreak surface, if users can infer the prompt structure, would it make certain prompt injection attacks easier? I'm not well-versed in ML security, and I'd be curious to hear from someone who is.

[−] tomrod 33d ago
Can it be replicated by a user?
[−] senectus1 32d ago
anyone get a copy of the prompt?
[−] fg137 32d ago
So?

To users, that's a distinct, useful feature, and they don't care about how it's implemented.

[−] trashface 33d ago
They do stuff like that. They also killed "Robot" personality last year which was my favorite. The replaced it with "Efficient" or something, but it isn't the same. Robot was terminator-esq, appropriate for the new age we are entering IMO.
[−] altmanaltman 33d ago
I remember videos with titles like "OPENAI CHANGED STUDYING COMPLETELY WITH THIS ONE SUPER UPDATE!" and obnoxious thumbnails on youtube when it was first launched. I guess studying changed it.
[−] drivebyhooting 33d ago
I’ve tried using it for working through AIME. It was ok, but significantly worse than a human teacher.

It generally knew how to solve the questions, but does not know how to properly scaffold the solution. It mostly just prompts simple calculations, rather than guide to get the insight. What’s worse is that ChatGPT would occasionally disagree with my calculation because it can’t do arithmetic!

[−] el_io 33d ago
Haven't use 'Study Mode' in OpenAI, but can't you just ask it to act as a study coach or whatever you want it to be?
[−] hbcondo714 33d ago
The also removed Chat mode (from their Codex VSCode extension):

https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/11007

[−] derrida 33d ago
Has ChatGPT gotten worse over past few months or is it I just have seen other things higher quality, or they stopped caring about user or something?

All of a sudden feels like it gives me boilerplate and boiler plate of PR and cheesy reasoning, and like no actual answers - worse even - highly confident wrong answers that it then seeks to justify or explain (like it doesn't seem humble enough to be like "Actually, got that wrong" or if challenged it just caves over, accepts too readilythe assumptions in what the user is asking, or just blindly accepts a premise of the question) it's almost useless, like before it used to seem like could get it to emulate the way a certain writer or discourse speaks, now it seems like this derpy highschool just wants to be in kid that went into public relations and the language no matter what the topic seems always the same, it's really spammy feeling,

I could be asking it questions about like how medieval monks talked about light and the breath in latin and it will be replying like I'm interested in monetising or improving my lifestyle or some b.s. I don't think it used to be this way?

reminds of a circa 2003-6 wordpress sites - blackhat seo - feeling to generate back links to push affiliate links or something, with markov generated content designed to push back links for the actual human written landing page

It's not like this on the other llms, something's up.

Or maybe they have just found the niche and it is a bunch of people who do think like that - like I dunno - middle management the world over

that is scary ... bonus ghastly incantations of the epistemology of middle management

[−] danish00111 31d ago
The problem with most "AI study modes" is that they optimize for knowledge transfer. The harder problem is knowledge use, being able to actually apply something under pressure. Reading about how to handle a difficult conversation is not the same as practicing it. Knowing the BATNA framework or some other thing you learn from chatgpt doesn't mean you can use it when someone lowballs you and you have 10 seconds to respond.
[−] treetalker 33d ago
FWIW, Kagi Assistant still has a Study mode / custom assistant. It works well and I use it a few times per week.
[−] m-hodges 33d ago
I tried it a few times and always found it disappointing. It typically started off like a structured "lesson" but as I chatted with it, it would forget the syllabus is had proposed and we never "completed" the thing we set out to learn.
[−] foundermodus 33d ago
What was the Study Mode? I never saw it.
[−] ok123456 33d ago
Gemini still has its study mode.
[−] CatDeveloper_ 33d ago
they do it with other stuff to i feel like they see how much users actually interact with those features and base their decsisoins kinda like how google owuld remove some features at random..
[−] jegudiel 33d ago
I used to enjoy studying with ChatGPT too. I was on their Plus plan.
[−] Jimmy0252 32d ago
Sam just loves doing these kinds of things.
[−] janpmz 33d ago
I was concerned about big players offering the same functionality when building listendock.com, but maybe there is a place for specialized apps like that.
[−] Marciplan 33d ago
in regards of sunsetting, they are better at being Google than Google is at being Google
[−] paulcole 33d ago
How would they remove it loudly?
[−] r4sz 33d ago
We silently remove OAI
[−] utopiah 33d ago
Before this Sora, and before that large government contracts. I don't think they care so much for the random consumer anymore. They use anything and everyone for PR but they get closer to IPO they are focusing what actually might make them profitable.

TL;DR: bet on stuff being removed

[−] bko 33d ago
I think its prob enough to do a prompt. Isn't that what these things are? Probably had some extra scaffolding before but now engine is good enough where just saying help me study results in the same results.

I personally dont want modes. It should be smart enough to infer my intention and act accordingly

[−] shivang2607 33d ago
Do people even used that ?
[−] enejej 33d ago
Another piece of evidence that shows OAI has no vision and taste re. Project selection.

Describes this whole LLM hype really. Will be jarring if it ends up being that the value created (in terms of revenues) is mostly around software production.

[−] nicoortizai 33d ago
[dead]
[−] pyalwin 33d ago
[flagged]
[−] hadifrt20 33d ago
[dead]
[−] sunilkumarai 30d ago
[dead]