Typically you can add some of your own alignment that is inserted before your prompt. On ChatGPT, they call it “memories”. I have found most agents are able to adopt a non-conversational mode when instructed, but sometimes you end up fighting with the platform alignment.

It’s not just creepy, I think it’s harmful, manipulative, and calculated. As social animals, we are extremely vulnerable to forming unconscious assumptions that we consciously know are bananas, particularity when our social machinery is engaged. For example, it’s well known that even the developers of video games fall the illusion of moral agency and personhood of the characters in their own games. We are primed to be fooled and accept software agents as people, and I believe AI companies are actively and intentionally trying to exploit this psychological weakness.