Their mistake is not grokking contrition. An apology ought either to be contrite or to justify why contrition is impossible.
To be explicit, contrition is the part of an apology where the apologizing party promises to change something. Without contrition, apologies are worthless, since they do not amend any social contract.
What the author proposes instead is indeed “Machiavellian” and “hacking social APIs;” we should recognize it as a form of deceit or lie. They are clearly more interested in appearing to be decent than in improving society, and should be marked as confidence scammers.
I feel like there’s a total lack of grokking period. Using reductive phrasing like “social API” suggests that there are actual rules to human interaction we understand and can currently define. While there might be a semblance of provincial rules (take the notion of justice, imo tightly coupled with apologies, and see how it differs across the world), there’s nothing universal and certainly nothing that rises to the level of a fucking application programming interface.
And indeed, the other crucial piece is that… apologizing isn’t a protocol with an expected reward function. I can just, not accept your apology. I can just, feel or “update my priors” howmever I like.
We apologize and care about these things because of shame. Which we have to regulate, in part through our actions and perspectives.
Why people feel the way they do and act the way do makes total sense when one finally confronts your own vulnerabilities sorry, builds an API and RL framework.
Their mistake is not grokking contrition. An apology ought either to be contrite or to justify why contrition is impossible.
To be explicit, contrition is the part of an apology where the apologizing party promises to change something. Without contrition, apologies are worthless, since they do not amend any social contract.
What the author proposes instead is indeed “Machiavellian” and “hacking social APIs;” we should recognize it as a form of deceit or lie. They are clearly more interested in appearing to be decent than in improving society, and should be marked as confidence scammers.
their mistake, as usual, is not grokking that genuine human interactions might be ritualised, but are not rituals.
I feel like there’s a total lack of grokking period. Using reductive phrasing like “social API” suggests that there are actual rules to human interaction we understand and can currently define. While there might be a semblance of provincial rules (take the notion of justice, imo tightly coupled with apologies, and see how it differs across the world), there’s nothing universal and certainly nothing that rises to the level of a fucking application programming interface.
And indeed, the other crucial piece is that… apologizing isn’t a protocol with an expected reward function. I can just, not accept your apology. I can just, feel or “update my priors” howmever I like.
We apologize and care about these things because of shame. Which we have to regulate, in part through our actions and perspectives.
Why people feel the way they do and act the way do makes total sense when
one finally confronts your own vulnerabilitiessorry, builds an API and RL framework.