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I've seen an interesting behavior in India. If I ask someone on the street for directions, they will always give me an answer, even if they don't know. If they
by koliber 9mo ago
I've seen an interesting behavior in India. If I ask someone on the street for directions, they will always give me an answer, even if they don't know. If they don't know, they'll make something up.
This was strange. I asked a lot of Indian people about it and they said that it has to do with "saving face". Saying "I don't know" is a disgraceful thing. So if someone does not know the answer, they make something up instead.
Have you seen this?
This behavior appears in software projects as well. It's difficult to work like this.
- ilogik 9mo agosounds like an LLM :)
- buckle8017 9mo ago[flagged]
- ValentineC 9mo agoI moderate an airline subreddit, and it's interesting that many of the lazy or entitled-sounding questions (e.g. "can I get compensation for this?") come from people flying to/from Indian cities.
- fakedang 9mo agoHonestly that's just the massive population talking. There really isn't a "Hindi web" for India unlike for the Chinese, so we all come to roost in the WWW. Hence you'll get bad questions like these but you'll also get YouTube videos on obscure engineering and science topics, which I think is a fair deal. The Chinese web is on similar lines, although there is a lot more country bashing, especially against Indians and Americans. But nevertheless just the same. At least none of these come nowhere near to the brainrot that is the Arabic web.
- buckle8017 9mo agoIndia is maybe 10% of the English speakers on earth. It's not the population size that's talking.
- fakedang 9mo ago1 billion internet users, some of whom may have an inkling of how to speak in English. My father's former property groundskeeper, a daily wage labourer, could speak poor English but he could string a few words together and understand the basic gist of a Hollywood movie, even without much of an English education. Imagine 100s of millions of those people and there's your answer.
- AndrewKemendo 9mo ago> I've seen an interesting behavior in India. If I ask someone on the street for directions, they will always give me an answer, even if they don't know. If they don't know, they'll make something up. Isn’t this the precise failure pattern that everybody shits on LLMs for?
- koliber 9mo agoYes.
- fakedang 9mo agoHence proved AGI = A Guy/Gal in India
- soco 9mo agoAh so that's what Anthropic's Amodei meant when saying AGI was attained - they actually reached that guy/gal.
- direwolf20 9mo agoPerhaps they meant detained.
- Nevermark 9mo agoHopefully, retained. But, a tained for sure.
- bicepjai 9mo agoThis is really funny.
- melvinmelih 9mo ago--
- 9mo ago
- bakugo 9mo ago> This was strange. I asked a lot of Indian people about it and they said that it has to do with "saving face". Saying "I don't know" is a disgraceful thing. I've recently learned that this particular type of "saving face" has a name: "izzat". Look that up if you want to know more.
- bluGill 9mo agoFirst I've heard of izzat... I'm not sure how to write that better, but the way you worded that made me suspect it was NSFW and I hesitated, but eventually decided I'd risk it. At least everything I found was work safe, and I learned a lot. I encourage everyone else who hasn't heard the word to look it up.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- AlanYx 9mo agoA lot of the stuff written on "izzat" is questionable or wrong, but it is true that India has a collective concept of saving face. This can be an adjustment even if you're used to the East Asian concept of saving face.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 9mo agoOh I wonder how dating works.
- kylehotchkiss 9mo ago... normally? they don't have the same "30% of adults will never marry because of arbitrary bullshit" that modern/western countries have.
- leephillips 9mo agoI got this so often in every part of the United States that some decades ago I just stopped asking anyone for directions.
- koliber 9mo agoStrange. Never had it happen regularly in the US.
- virgil_disgr4ce 9mo agoI've never once experienced this nor literally ever heard anyone say someone gave them made-up directions in the US. The only time I've ever experienced made-up directions were trying to get out of the souk in Marrakech.
- leephillips 9mo agoI was unclear. I’m pretty sure the wrong directions I routinely got in the US (I was born and raised in NYC) were not made up, just wrong.
- lostlogin 9mo ago> I've never once experienced this nor literally ever heard anyone say someone gave them made-up directions in the US. Wouldn’t know. After the first two instructions I can never remember what came next.
- wolvoleo 9mo agoNo, but I have noticed that somehow it's hard for them to say "no". This is impolite apparently. So you ask: "Can you do this before friday" and they say yes and then don't do it at all. Which of course is a lot less polite and causes a lot of friction. However this was a thing 10-15 years ago. Lately I've not seen that.
- mikkupikku 9mo agoMy experience is the same, to put it charitable a lot of people from that culture are often eager to please. I think about this a lot when I hear about billionaires like Elon Musk wanting more immigration from India specifically. I think this cultural trait often serves them well in western corporate contexts, despite the frustration it causes their coworkers.
- overfeed 9mo ago> Which of course is a lot less polite and causes a lot of friction. Most cultures have this, but it goes mostly unnoticed from the inside because one can read between the lines. "How are you?" can be asked just to be polite, and can cause friction when answered truthfully (rather than just politely, as the cultural dance requires). An Eastern European may not appreciate the insincerity of such a question.
- lostlogin 9mo agoGreat example. I work in a radiology practice and greet patients regularly. 99% of them say the are good/great etc. It’s quite a striking response when they are limping, bandaged and on crutches.
- unsupp0rted 9mo agoThat’s not really an example of cultural lying- that’s an example of a fixed answer to a fixed question. When somebody sneezes and you say “bless you” you’re not expressing your belief in god, and you’re not lying about one either.
- grugagag 9mo agoThis reminds me of the time when I got lost when visiting LA about 20 year ago. Asked some guy on the street for help. He gave me directions as he was smirking at me. Turns out he pointed me in the opposite direction from where I was going to and most likely he was just being a dick.
- eklavya 9mo agoEvery time I hear any Indian trope, I find it interesting that it's only people in online forum who experience it. Somehow none of my non/Indian colleagues over the course of more than a decade have faced these ridiculous situations. They must be unlucky.
- SauntSolaire 9mo agoMany wouldn't be comfortable discussing this with coworkers.
- metanonsense 9mo agoI’ve seen this with some of my Indian colleagues, though definitely not all. In fact, most are more than eager to disagree with me :D (even though I’m their superior)
- mandeepj 9mo ago> In fact, most are more than eager to disagree with me :D (even though I’m their superior) They must have spent a lot of time out of India or they are in senior roles.
- projektfu 9mo agoAccording to Hal Roach, the Irish do this too, because they don't want to disappoint you. I haven't asked for a lot of directions in Ireland, but I can imagine this is true, or that they will just keep you chatting and see if you forget about your question.
- to11mtm 9mo ago> This behavior appears in software projects as well. It's difficult to work like this. I have seen that across just about every culture in the software engineering world. And not just in the 'business' itself. I still remember the argument I had with an Infosec guy where he absolutely insisted that every Jeep had AWD or 4WD from the factory, Even naming ones that didn't did nothing until I more or less passively aggressively sent him wikipedia links to a few vehicles. At which point he proceeded to claim "No I said it was always a standard option" ... To be clear this whole argument started because someone asked why I swore by Subarus and mentioned 'Every US Model but the BRZ has AWD standard' but Heep owners gotta have false pride, idk. People do weird shit with imposter syndrome sometimes, IDK.
- flakeoil 9mo agoIt's the same in the UK (when it comes to giving directions). Maybe for completely different reasons. I guess they just want to be nice and helpful. And always with a cheerful: "...you can't miss it." Yeah, sure.
- quails8mydog 9mo agoThat's not been my experience living in the UK. Whe I've asked for directions people either give correct ones (as far as I remember) or say they don't know. When people ask me and I don't know, I say I don't know.
- Izikiel43 9mo agoSo it's like an LLM?