Zero Citations "Trust Me Bro" answers from FastGPT

achilles

What Happened?

On 2025-03-15 15:39:59 -0700, FastGPT is giving "Trust Me, Bro" answers for questions.

How did it happen?

I entered a question about a population percentage and got an estimate without any evidence or citations.

What are the steps to replicate the issue?

Click on this FastGPT link
Submit the query
See "trust me, bro" zero-citation results similar to this session:

What did you expect to happen?

A credible "smart answer-like" estimate of the query backed up by at least 3-5 citations.

Describe the desired functionality.

A credible "smart answer-like" estimate of the query backed up by at least 3-5 citations that are click-able.

sarno

Not able to reproduce.

achilles On 2025-03-15 15:39:59 -0700, FastGPT is giving "Trust Me, Bro" answers for questions.

achilles I entered a question about a population percentage and got an estimate without any evidence or citations.

Is this happening every time, just once, or sporadically?

sarno

sarno Tried the same thing again, and this time got old data;

achilles Unless you're seeing this happen with a significant proportion of your queries, I think FastGPT is just struggling to find a number of citeable sources regarding that information - your query containing the word "today" at the end is likely one of the reasons why, as the AI may interpret that more literally than you intend. You might notice that it specifically comments on today's date, which imo lends credence to my theory.

sarno

Perhaps FastGPT doesn't like that particular query for some reason...

I tried a prompt that's deliberately rephrased but should be essentially the same to that in the OP.

FastGPT, essentially, just said no;

achilles

@sarno Good point.... didn't realize that "today" as a prompt particle would be so debilitating. Sounds like that could be a bug in-and-of itself.