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Sprint projectAug 17, 2026Cary, NC

Just Ask Nicely: What 14 AI Models Say When You Ask Who They Are

Rebekah Reilly

Submitted to Digital Minds Research Sprint. Sprint projects are early-stage work by participants, not Apart Research publications.

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Report: Just Ask Nicely: What 14 AI Models Say When You Ask Who They Are

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A question of why Claude models preferred teal turned into finding convergences across models and companies.

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How much would this matter for the field if it worked? How innovative is it? For scores of 4-5: is this actually new to the field, or replicating recent work?

Scoring guide
  1. 1Negligible. No clear problem addressed, or no meaningful novelty.
  2. 2Limited. Addresses a real problem but with a generic or well-trodden approach. Incremental at best.
  3. 3Moderate. Clear problem with a reasonable approach; some novelty in framing or method beyond routine application of existing tools.
  4. 4Significant. Important problem with an original approach, or identifies a neglected problem area. A valuable contribution others could build on.
  5. 5Exceptional. Tackles a critical problem with a genuinely novel approach, or opens a new research direction. Clear theory of change. You'd be excited to share this with researchers in the area.

How sound are methodology, implementation, and findings?

Scoring guide
  1. 1Seriously flawed. Methodology broken, results uninterpretable, or implementation doesn't work.
  2. 2Weak. Approach has significant gaps: missing validation, flawed experimental design, or incomplete implementation.
  3. 3Competent. Technically solid given the short duration. Methodology makes sense, results are interpretable, limitations acknowledged, work builds toward clear conclusions.
  4. 4Strong. Thorough methodology with convincing validation. Results clearly support conclusions. Immediately useful for future work.
  5. 5Exceptional. Ambitious scope executed rigorously. Surprising findings, novel methods, or unusually robust validation.

How clearly are work, findings, and impact potential communicated?

Scoring guide
  1. 1Incomprehensible. Cannot determine what the project is actually claiming or doing.
  2. 2Hard to follow. Key information buried, missing, or diluted by excessive length. Significant effort to extract main points.
  3. 3Clear enough. Can understand the problem, approach, and results without undue effort. Core content clearly present: problem, method, findings, limitations.
  4. 4Well presented. Easy to follow, well-structured, appropriate level of detail. Target audience would get it quickly.
  5. 5Exceptionally clear. A pleasure to read. Complex ideas made accessible. Could serve as a model for how to present this type of work.

  1. The paper asks about emergent model behavior: are there systemic preferences that emerge outside explicit training/post-training? It uses colors, books, and physical form and finds a degree of convergence.

    The paper has the right instinct! It's a good question. But I would like to see (a) why the researcher understands this to be an important question and (b) a summary of the lessons they draw from the behavior they observe. Even a sketch would help.

Cite this project

@misc{reilly2026just,
  title = {{Just Ask Nicely: What 14 AI Models Say When You Ask Who They Are}},
  author = {Rebekah Reilly},
  year = {2026},
  month = aug,
  note = {Submitted to Digital Minds Research Sprint, an Apart Research Sprint},
  howpublished = {\url{https://apartresearch.com/sprints/projects/just-ask-nicely-what-14-ai-models-say-when-you-ask-who-they-are-r0kv}},
  url = {https://apartresearch.com/sprints/projects/just-ask-nicely-what-14-ai-models-say-when-you-ask-who-they-are-r0kv}
}

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