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Once heard a good sermon from a reverend who clearly outlined that any attempt to embed "spirit" into a service, whether through willful emoting, or songs being
by dingdingdang 1y ago
Once heard a good sermon from a reverend who clearly outlined that any attempt to embed "spirit" into a service, whether through willful emoting, or songs being overly performary, would amount to self-deception since aforementioned spirit need to arise spontaneously to be of any real value.
Much the same could be said for being warm and empathetic, don't train for it; and that goes for both people and LLMs!
- Al-Khwarizmi 1y agoAs a parent of a young kid, empathy definitely needs to be trained with explicit instruction, at least in some kids.
- mnsc 1y agoAnd for all kids and adults and elderly, empathy needs to be encouraged, practiced and nurtured.
- spookie 1y agoYou have put into words way better what I was attempting to say at first. So yeah, this.
- frumplestlatz 1y agoSociety is hardly suffering from a lack of empathy these days. If anything, its institutionalization has become pathological. I’m not surprised that it makes LLMs less logically coherent. Empathy exists to short-circuit reasoning about inconvenient truths as to better maintain small tight-knit familial groups.
- lawlessone 1y ago>its institutionalization has become pathological. any examples? because i am hard pressed to find it.
- allan_s 1y agoA lot of companies I know have "kindness/empathy" in their value or even promote it as part of the company philosophy to the point it has already become a cliché (and so new companies explicitly avoid to put it explicitly) I can say also a lot of DEI trainings were about being empathic to the minorities.
- bmicraft 1y agoBut the problem there isn't empathy as a value, the problem is that is comes across as very clearly fake in most cases
- ACow_Adonis 1y agoWell yes, but that's not actually empathy. Empathy has to be felt by an actual person. Indeed its literally the contrary/opposite case. They have to emphasise it specifically because they are reacting to the observation that they, as a giant congregate artificial profit-seeking legally-defined entity as opposed to a real one, are incapable of feeling such. Do you also think that family values are ever present at startups that say we're like a family? It's specifically a psychological and social conditioning response to try to compensate for the things they're recognised as lacking...
- allan_s 1y agoYes hence why it's an example of >its institutionalization has become pathological.
- kergonath 1y ago> A lot of companies I know have "kindness/empathy" in their value or even promote it as part of the company philosophy to the point it has already become a cliché (and so new companies explicitly avoid to put it explicitly) That’s purely performative, though. As sincere as the net zero goals from last year that were dropped as soon as Trump provided some cover. It is not empathy, it is a façade.
- 1y ago
- ac794 1y agoWhat is the evidence that empathy exists to short-circuit reasoning? Empathy is about understanding someone else's perspective.
- frumplestlatz 1y agoEmpathy biases reasoning toward in-group cohesion, overriding dispassionate reasoning that could threaten group unity. Empathy is not required for logical coherence. It exists to override what one might otherwise rationally conclude. Bias toward anyone’s relative perspective is unnecessary for logically coherent thought. [edit] Modeling someone’s cognition or experience is not empathy. Empathy is the emotional process of identifying with someone, not the cognitive act of modeling them.
- Forgeties79 1y agoThis reads like something Ayn Rand would say. Take that how you will.
- mnsc 1y agoI have a friend who reads ayn and agrees with her drug riddled thinking. But I still try to connect with him through empathic understanding (understanding with a person, not about him) and that lets me keep up the relation and not destroying it by pointing out and gloating about every instance where he is a good selfless person. :)
- Forgeties79 1y agoYou’re right, there are nicer ways I could have made my point. Though I can’t help but point out there’s a little bit of irony in throwing a “:)” at the end of your comment when commenting on my tone haha
- mnsc 1y agoOh I don't meant to do that I think. I just thought of that friend due to how hard it is to emphathize with him during discussions about rand/objectivism. It's so non-human to take egoism to that extreme. But I still try and I don't consider him stupid/inhuman for holding those beliefs.
- PaulHoule 1y agoSome would argue empathy can be a bad thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Empathy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Empathy As it frequently is coded relative to a tribe. Pooh Pooh people’s fear of crime and disorder for instance and those people will think you don’t have empathy for them and vote for somebody else.
- webstrand 1y agoIt feels like he just defines empathy in a way that makes it easy to attack. Most people when they talk about empathy in a positive way, they're talking about the ability to place oneself in another's shoes and understand why they are doing what they are doing or not doing, not necessarily the emotional mirroring aspect he's defined empathy to be.
- davorak 1y ago> not necessarily the emotional mirroring aspect he's defined empathy to be. The way the wikipedia article describes Bloom's definition is less generous than what you have here > For Bloom, "[e]mpathy is the act of coming to experience the world as you think someone else does"[1]: 16 So for bloom it is not necessarily even accurately mirroring another's emotions, but only what you think there emotions are. > Bloom also explores the neurological differences between feeling and understanding, which are central to demonstrating the limitations of empathy. This seems to artificial separate empathy and understanding in a way that does not align with common usage and I would argue also makes for a less useful definition in that I would then need new words to describe what I currently use 'empathy' for.
- username332211 1y agoSurely you can empathize with an act? In fact it's probably a requirement in order to be able to enjoy cinema and theater. And actors aren't the only ones that pretend to be something they are not. If you don't want to distinguish between empathy and understanding, a new term has to be introduced about mirroring the emotions of a mirage. I'm not sure the word for that exists?
- spookie 1y agoWell, if they somehow get to experience the other side of the coin, that helps. And to be fair empathy does come more and more with age.
- seszett 1y agoI don't think experiencing lack of empathy in others actually improves one's sense of empathy, on the contrary. It's definitely not an effective way to inculcate empathy in children.
- j16sdiz 1y agoUnlike LLM, kids have long term memory and they builds up relationships. Real wisdom is to know when to show empathy and when not to by exploiting (?) existing relationships. Current generation of LLM can't do that's because every they don't have real memory
- dingdingdang 1y agoWell, as a fellow parent I agree; but in my experience it only works when the trainer presents a perpetually lived example of said empathy (which at times can be hard!)
- m463 1y agoprompt: "be warm and empathetic, but not codependent"
- galangalalgol 1y ago"be ruthless with constructive criticism. Point out every unstated assumption and every logical fallacy in any prompt"
- astrange 1y ago> Point out every unstated assumption What, all of them? That's a difficult problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicature > every logical fallacy They killed Socrates for that, you know.
- IncreasePosts 1y agoI wonder if they would have killed Socrates if he proposed a "suitable" punishment for his crimes, as was tradition. He proposed either being given free food and housing as punishment, or fined a trifle of silver.
- potato3732842 1y ago>He proposed either being given free food and housing as punishment, or fined a trifle of silver. Contempt of state process is implicitly a crime just about everywhere no matter where or when in history you look so it's unsurprising they killed him for it. He knew what he was doing when he doubled down, probably.
- potato3732842 1y ago"act like a comment section full of smug jerks who believe something that is factually incorrect and are trying to tear down someone for pointing that out".
- renewiltord 1y ago[flagged]
- evanjrowley 1y agoReading this reminded me of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. The moral of the story is a very similar theme.
- ninetyninenine 1y agoWill you be offended if an LLM told you the cold hard truth that you are wrong? It's like if a calculator proved me wrong. I'm not offended by the calculator. I don't think anybody cares about empathy for an LLM. Think about it thoroughly. If someone you knew called you an ass hole and it was the bloody truth, you'd be pissed. But I won't be pissed if an LLM told me the same thing. Wonder why.
- jagged-chisel 1y agoThe LLMs I have interacted with are so sure of themselves until I provide evidence to the contrary. I won’t believe an LLM about my own shortcomings until it can provide evidence to the contrary. Without that evidence, it’s just an opinion. I do get your point. I feel like the answer for LLMs is for them to be more socratic.
- ninetyninenine 1y agoLike you won't believe an LLM, but that's not the point. The point is were you offended?
- enobrev 1y agoNot offended, but I would quite unhappy if a calculator called me an asshole because I disagree that 2+2=bobcat
- ninetyninenine 1y agoYou would have a personal problem with the LLM? Lies. I don’t believe you at all. You’re a goddamn liar. And that’s the brutal truth.
- sitkack 1y agoNot offended. One of us is probably an LLM.
- socalgal2 1y ago
- HKH2 1y agoWhat do you do when people tell you to smile for the camera?
- veunes 1y agoThe paradox is that humans can sometimes "fake it till they make it" and actually grow genuine empathy through practice
- justanotherjoe 1y agoIt's very rare that someone proactively tries to be more caring to others. I try to be one myself. I'm so rude and disinterested usually. Especially to other guys.
- buu700 1y agoRelevant as always: https://youtu.be/H7PgWg_i4EY?t=67 https://youtu.be/H7PgWg_i4EY?t=67
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]