Lying to Ourselves

My friend David Levitt posted this hypothesis on Facebook:

Theory:
Humans are so mentally lazy and emotionally
dishonest about what they know, soon AI will
be much better leaders.

I responded as follows. Approximately. By which I mean I've done some light editing. (Does that mean I lied when I say this is how I responded?)

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I think the notion of honesty here is a red herring. There are a lot of human behaviors that do actually serve a purpose and if you're looking for intellectual honesty, it's as much missing in how we conventionally summarize our society as in how we administer it or ourselves.

Of course we lie sometimes.

• We lie because not all answers are possible to obtain.
  What is an approximation to pi but a lie?
• We lie because it comforts children who are scared.
• We lie because it's more likely to cause success when you tell people your company is going to succeed than if you say "well, maybe" in your pitch to rally excitement.
• We lie because it saves face for people who tried very hard or never had a realistic chance of affecting things to tell them they are blameless.
• We lie because some things are multiple-choice and don't have the right choice.
• We lie because it protects people from danger.
• We lie because some things happen so fast that abstractions like "now" are impossible to hold precise.
• We lie because we are imprecise computationally and could not compute a correct truth.
• We lie because not all correct truth is worth the price of finding out.
• We lie because papering over uninteresting differences is the foundation of abstraction, which has allowed us to reason above mere detail.
• We lie because—art.

So when we talk of machines being more intellectually honest, we'd better be ready for what happens when all this nuance that society has built up for so long gets run over.

Yes, people lie for bad reasons. Yes, that's bad and important not to do.

But it is naive in the extreme to say that all lies are those bad ones, or that of course computers will do a better job, most especially computers running programs like ChatGPT that have no model whatsoever of what they're doing and that are simply paraphrasing things they've heard, adding structural flourishes and dropping attribution at Olympic rates in order to hide those facts.

Any one of those acts which have bootstrapped ChatGPT, by the way, could be called a lie.

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Author‘s Notes:

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Laziness is also misunderstood and maligned, but that is topic for another day. For now, I refer the ambitious reader to an old Garfield cartoon that I used to have physically taped to my door at my office, back when offices were physical things one went to.

Simple Political Competence

Media keeps calling it "leadership"—the thing that had been missing in 45's administration, that Biden restored. But 45 was a leader of sorts. His base was drawn to that. What he lacked was the competence to manage the parts of government we rely on.

As a public, we lack competence too. We interview prospective leaders but not on how policy will work. Just please sound sure. We'll vote promises, fear, hope. That's why education must be in reach of everyone: so we ask harder questions and understand the answers. Democracy cannot not survive an uneducated public.

Politics must care about science because policies must address what the world throws at us. Science can't fully predict the future, but it can report the odds, letting us be more prepared. To Ignore such a potential edge shows willful lack of competence.

Climate Change is here, gaining steam. To oppose addressing it is willful denial and plain incompetence. A partisan divide over simple, unavoidable truth makes no sense, but if the GOP wants to draw the line there, say it plainly: They're the Party of Incompetence.

There is a lot of work to do ahead. 45 left things in shambles, some borne of evil profiteering intent, other parts of manifest incompetence of the highest order. Even when dug out from that, we have big problems afoot. We need competent solutions.

Let go of centrism, which says no matter the problem, modest solutions are enough, an incompetent claim. Big problems may need big solutions.

• Identify compassionate goals. (Or why bother?)
• Fairly express problems.
• Offer competent solutions.
• Only then, lead.

Recent shifts in diversity and inclusion are a good start at compassion and fairness. Campaign funding reform is key, too. Properly representing We The People lays foundation to solve the right problems. Competently describing and solving problems will do the rest.

Democratic Values

✓ Compassion
✓ Fairness
✓ Competence
✓ Leadership
  (democracy)

The GOP fancies itself the party of values. Dems have values, too, but have been incompetent at articulating them. That must change.

Compassion. Fairness. Competence. Leadership.

Pick a simple set like I've offered here. Repeat them every single day for 4 years.

The previous President had very few competencies, and terrible values. There is not a lot to learn from him other than what not to do. But he knew how to get a message out. The messages he picked were terrible. But repeating them daily clearly had an effect on many voters.

Democrats should learn from that—not the messages, but a way to deliver messages so they sink in. Daily repetition is essential.

And did I mention repetition helps? It's part of competent messaging.

Bill Clinton's campaign was famously designed around the mantra "It's the economy, stupid." I would almost suggest the phrase "It's the competence, stupid." but calling each other stupid won't get us far.

Also, competence isn't the whole of it, just something recently and conspicuously missing in the GOP. Actually, all of these important qualities are lacking in the GOP, except leadership.

Republican Values

❌ Compassion
❌ Fairness
❌ Competence
✓ Leadership
  (autocracy)

The GOP does offer leadership, but of a pure authoritarian kind.

• GOP policy lacks compassion.
• GOP policy lacks fairness.
• GOP policy lacks competence.

That's why articulating values in this way matters.

• These are not words you can usefully attack.
• These are not words you can easily forge.
• These are words that most voters would say they care about.

Plus, in difficult times, well-articulated values can cut through political disagreements. They serve as a compass to remind us of where we're going, why we're going there, and why it matters to choose plans that really get us there.

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This post began as a Twitter thread I posted on Feb 20, 2021.