user

Definition

The person operating the system, and also a role label in chat-formatted conversations, where each message is tagged as system, user, or assistant. The distinction matters technically: models are trained to weight these roles differently, and prompt-injection concerns turn on content in one role being treated as instructions from another. In alignment work, the standard is whether the model serves the user's actual intent rather than the literal wording.

Explainers using this term

• Paper Walkthrough: The Personalization Mirage — LLMs Invent a Version of You, and Their Self-Reports Point the Wrong WayThe Personalization Mirage: How LLMs Fabricate User Profiles, and Why Self-Monitoring Misleads