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Call it cynicism but I think humans just prefer things to be implicit. I've been annoyed by how people do not want to be specific, but then rant about how someo

• nbadg 2y ago
  The thing is, most of the time, you can actually have both. You just have to spend the time to build systems that way. To use the example from the article: spreadsheets could use strongly-typed columns, but guess the column type automatically based on the values entered. When things go right, it'd be just as easy as today, but if things go wrong, you always have an escape hatch: with a little more work, you can manually specify the column type. Problem solved. That gives you the increased productivity you want for the happy case, without the frustration of trying to find a workaround for the corner case. This kind of approach needs more architecture work at the beginning of a project, but it's almost always feasible. That being said, I think your frustration is warranted, although I think it's much more pervasive than tech. At its core, I think the problem is that, in your example, the CEO and the programmer are having two different conversations without really realizing it. The CEO wants a problem solved, but the programmer wants the tools to solve the problem themselves. The CEO thinks that ML should be able to solve their problem, but the programmer sees that ML as a tool has serious limitations, and won't help solve under-specification. And then they both end up talking past each other. It seems that a lot of (at least western society) is built around the idea that when someone asks for help, what they "really" want is, metaphorically, to be given a fish for dinner, instead of learning how to fish. That's the CEO in your example; the presumption is "I want help" means "solve my problem", not "make it easy for me to solve my problem myself". It's one of my biggest frustrations, because it inherently robs you of agency and in many cases can be downright condescending -- for example, when I was working as a mechanical engineer, there were shop floor guys ignoring the tolerances I specified on my drawings because they assumed I was over-specifying them, because they lacked the context of the rest of the design, and weren't willing to sit down to hear the bigger picture. But when I had to send the parts back for re-work, they acted like it was my fault. Anyways, this is all a really long-winded way of saying, I think this is largely a social problem, not a technological one. But I don't think it's inherent in humans; I think this is something we've learned as a part of our culture.
  • imtringued 2y ago
    Excel already works that way. The scientists insist on CSV though, which is a format that isn't supported by Excel.
• vaylian 2y ago
  > Call it cynicism but I think humans just prefer things to be implicit. I agree with the implicit part, but not with the cynicism. Most human-to-human communication has implicit details, simply because there would otherwise be too many "obvious" details that need to be communicated. Suffice to say, humans tend to misunderstand each other when different assumptions are held and things can go horribly wrong. People like mathematicians and programmers, who are used to formal thinking, know that you have to be rigorous in your statements. We understand that details and edge cases matter. And it can be frustrating when other people don't understand that you need to look at the full picture instead of a very rough sketch. > I've been annoyed by how people do not want to be specific, but then rant about how someone did not understand exactly what they wanted. I'm also annoyed when this happens. But then I say: This is what you requested. I can only work with the information that you provide to me.
  • mmcdermott 2y ago
    > I'm also annoyed when this happens. But then I say: This is what you requested. I can only work with the information that you provide to me. I think it depends on the attitude of the person giving feedback. I generally find that digging into why this isn't what the user wanted is more illuminating. Tell me a story and I'll gain context and get more of the implicit details right going forward.
• two_handfuls 2y ago
  For humans it’s primarily a form of data compression. We rely on a shared understanding and ability to detect inconsistencies and ask. This breaks down when someone starts talking outside of that shared understanding (say, on the internet) but do not realize more context is now needed.
• sandworm101 2y ago
  >> it is that natural language is too imprecise. If only there was a trade, a group of educated professionals with specific training in the use of language to describe a desired outcome. We could call them "language engineers" and regulated them via state associations meant to protect the public from charlatans.
  • jjk166 2y ago
    I wouldn't call them language engineers as they don't engineer languages. Such an individual would be more accurately described as a Language-Astute Worker Yielding Exact Responses.