Every complex software system tends to have sub-systems that are in the process of being rewritten but stuck in limbo. I call this myself the Hydra, although it’s a term that doesn’t exist outside of my head.
The subject of second systems deserves a full essay but while I sit on it and finish the books I have in mind, let’s enjoy this gem from Artur’s blog:
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system.
Today we discussed with a colleague what is good code and what isn’t. We somewhat agreed that good code is code that can be understood and changed by people who aren’t the author. Hours later, I found this quote in the book I’m reading and wanted to share it:
The true test of good code is how easy it is to change it.
There’s code people understand, change, and create a mess. There’s code people understand, change, and don’t create a mess. There’s code people don’t understand and don’t change. It stays perfect until somebody decides to start over and create a two-headed Hydra because they see no other way.
Obscure and impenetrable language conveys a sense of expertise
Dan Ariely
Have you been in a situation in which the person you talk to speaks and you don’t get anything? I have in a variety of cases:
Worked for 3 months on the same team with a statistician
Spent time with Systems and DevOps folks speaking their language
Discussed some renovation projects with a variety of contractors
I have a 5-year-old
The common thing between these situations is that the person in front of me may speak with excitement and a lot, and I only catch a fraction of what’s said, and most certainly not the meaning. Many of these scenarios are harmless and funny, but some aren’t. Sometimes, the language can be used maliciously. For example, some of the contractors I spoke with convinced me to do unnecessary repairs or justified expenses without me understanding what they meant. Subpar and expensive work followed.
How does that work?
Each discipline forms terminology and professional jargon that’s used between experts to understand each other and to transfer knowledge. Knowing that language creates a sense of belonging to an exclusive group of people. We are used to accepting that people know things better than us in almost all areas. So it is expected that professionals in an area use the professional language. The caveat is, that they’re expected to do that between each other. When these words are used outside of the professional context or during a negotiation with a person with different expertise, it could indicate a few things:
Lack of awareness that the other person doesn’t understand everything
An attempt to coerce approval based on expertise, also known as an “Appeal to authority” – and is a logical fallacy.
For example, in the previous sentence, I could use “Argumentum ad verecundiam” instead of “Appeal to authority” and would use obscure language myself, trying to sound like an expert, while I’m really not.
My expectations about expert language
We can’t assume bad intent when obscure language is used in a conversation with us. We can, however, be aware that many experts would be able to switch their language depending on the audience. I have two relatives who are university professors in different technical areas. I’ve had plenty of conversations with them on their work without hearing a single challenging or jargon word.
It is also possible to introduce necessary expert words by explaining them. For example, the wordpress.com pricing advertises “Global edge caching”.
Many consumers of that information would understand it but most would have no idea what it is. So there’s a tooltip introducing the terminology, this way making it fair.
The construction worker should also be able to explain why tiles can or can’t be put on a specific foundation in a language that I understand, so should the project manager explain Scrum and the Systems engineer who wants to use AWS for their project should be able to explain why without a single BS word.
The 5-year-old is forgiven.
How to identify red flags
My strategy is to ask for an explanation when I hear something that I don’t understand. When I ask too many questions and I keep not understanding, a red flag appears. It still doesn’t necessarily mean the other person is ill-intended. It might mean I didn’t do my homework with a glossary. In that case, we may need to bring out somebody else to the conversation who is fluent in the language. Otherwise, we have a communication failure, and the communication failure can lead to bigger problems.
TL;DR – “Oh shit, I don’t understand a word they’re saying, they must be an expert” needs to become “Oh shit, I don’t a word they’re saying. Do I ask them to slow down and explain or shall I call Saul?”
I find it funny that every time a very clear statement is explained or exaggerated with an adverb, the explanation is a hint that the opposite is present or the statement is not entirely true.
He absolutely doesn’t drink alcohol. I will totally buy a ticket for the next Taylor Swift concert. The students will use ChatGPT entirely for research purposes.
ChatGPT and “(Ethically)!” in one sentence, in a paid ad.
The first time I encountered the moral dilemma around the use of AI was in the Robots series by Isaac Asimov. I read that long before I owned a computer and totally bought the idea of a positronic brain. Asimov saw that robots if allowed to do whatever they wanted would just start killing. He envisioned a set of forced limitations that AI never hurts humans (the full list of 3+1 laws is here) as the only way for robots to be useful. Asimov noticed in his books that robots would replace human labor and eventually cause stagnation but that was only partially addressed in his series after centuries of expansion.
Who could’ve imagined that the first appearance of any resemblance of AI would need a very different set of laws than Asimov’s first 3? The present-day AI already appears in multiple forms, each of which has its own ethical challenges. The prompt-based tools tend to use human content and present it as their own with no citation or link to the author. They’re awesome for faking homework. The image generation tools copy artists’ work and make it semi-unique, filling the need for cheap illustrations on spam websites that would slip undetected by Googlebot. The chatbots and robocalls automate tasks that were once reserved for humans, causing unemployment. There has to be a fine line between what’s okay and what isn’t.
Any statement by AI should cite the sources of information and provide links
AI should not present slight modifications of human content as its own
AI should not use the prompts of one human outside of the context of the interaction with that human.
But after writing this, I had a lightbulb moment. If anyone put a thought on this, it has to be the EU administration. And yes, the EU agreed on a much longer document, where Generative AI is just one type of risk and contains an Asimov-like masterpiece:
Generative AI, like ChatGPT, would have to comply with transparency requirements:
Disclosing that the content was generated by AI
Designing the model to prevent it from generating illegal content
Publishing summaries of copyrighted data used for training
Generative AI is not even considered a high-risk type of tool. EU considers AI tools as high-risk if they classify humans, analyze emotions, collect faces, provide advice on health or legal matters, talk to children, and so on. How didn’t Asimov think about that? The existential dangers of a toy that can explain dangerous activities to children.
Overall, the definition of an ethical use of AI is taking some shape but I wonder how much damage will be caused to human content creation and creativity until any of that’s adopted.
At least, none of these risks is Skynet and Asimov’s laws are not yet relevant.
I just finished the first part and here we are, a promotion for the continuation is waiting for me.
The MarTech person is me is really curious about the conversion rates of the negative discount. Does the higher price compensate for the drop in conversions by people who get annoyed by the bug?
Veselin.blog 