System 2 Attention
Also called S2A.
System 2 Attention (S2A) first prompts the model to rewrite the input so that it keeps only the relevant, unbiased content, then answers using the rewritten context.
Description
Weston and Sukhbaatar showed this reduces the influence of irrelevant or opinionated text in the prompt, improving factuality and reducing sycophancy toward opinions stated in the question.
Sources
- Weston & Sukhbaatar (2023). System 2 Attention (is something you might need too).
Cite this entry
Protologue. (2026). System 2 Attention. In Protologue: A Taxonomy of Prompting and LLM Techniques (v1.0.0, PTL-0040). https://protologue.com/t/system-2-attention/
BibTeX
@misc{protologue_system_2_attention,
title = {System 2 Attention},
author = {{Protologue}},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {Protologue: A Taxonomy of Prompting and LLM Techniques, v1.0.0},
note = {Entry PTL-0040},
url = {https://protologue.com/t/system-2-attention/}
}