ModelRefs / Verbosity — AI Glossary
Verbosity — AI Glossary
The tendency of instruction-tuned models to produce longer, more elaborate responses than necessary, often to satisfy RLHF raters.
Overview
RLHF creates a verbosity bias: raters often prefer longer answers that appear thorough, even if a concise answer is better. Manifests as padding, unnecessary caveats, and restating the question. Addressed in Claude's constitution and GPT-4o by penalizing padding and rewarding conciseness. Verbosity increases token cost and latency.
Reference details
| Topic | prompting |
|---|---|
| Last reviewed | 2026-06-24 |
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Frequently asked questions
What is Verbosity?
The tendency of instruction-tuned models to produce longer, more elaborate responses than necessary, often to satisfy RLHF raters.
What concepts are related to Verbosity?
Closely related concepts include sycophancy, instruction following, alignment.