Comment by mdp2021 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mdp2021 | Hacker News Reader

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Curiously enough, Tony Robbins just published this a few hours ago, from an old interview:

> ...There was a study where they took a group of actors, had them go out to 200 people and ... they walked up to each person and ... held a cup of coffee, they walk up to you [and hand you the cup], ... look down so you can't say yes or no, and you'd end up taking it - they get their phone, they adjust it, they take [the cup] back and say "Thank you", that's the whole thing - same facial expression for every person, only difference, half got an iced coffee the other got hot coffee. Now 30 minutes go by, they send out ... a research assistant with a clipboard and they come up to these same individuals and say, "If you give us two minutes your time we'll give you twenty dollars: will you just read these three paragraphs and tell us what you think of this character?" ... they read the three paragraphs and they say "What do you think of the main character in this little story?". 81% that were given iced coffee say the person is cold and uncaring; 80% percent (a one percent variance) of those [of the] hot said the person is warm and connected and caring. ... Most people think their thoughts are their thoughts, when really your thoughts have been primed by the environment

I call BS! I'd like to see the original paper, or better yet, a replication of the study.

Sure, on a cold day a hot coffee may be nice to hold and an iced coffee may be unpleasant. But on a hot day? The hot coffee burns your hands; the iced coffee is refreshing to hold. And this is even accepting the premise of the claim.

(Or perhaps it's reversed! Maybe we'd be more likely to think well of someone who asked us to do something mildly unpleasant, in a Franklin-esque way, and resent someone who offered us a pleasant moment only to take it away.)

(Or maybe the idea is mental association? I do, after all, think well of glassblowers and distrust ice cream vendors.)

Are we unknowingly influenced by little things, by the wrong things? Definitey, but I'd be surprised if this were an accurate example.

edit: my apologies for the bit of snark ^^'

I am tickled a bit by the story, though.

> I call

Possibly, but that (that the case mentioned by Tony Robbins is not factual) is not the important thing: it is an example of what is involved in not vetting ideas. Practice ("before accepting an idea, think") that should be a basically held mandate - also (not primarily) given the warnings of a large part of psychology that shows how easy it is to be fooled.

If you want more solid examples, I recommend the speeches from Charlie Munger about "human misjudgement", which take much from Cialdini and consolidated researchers (and have a "been there, seen that" seal from Munger).

Behaviour that is avoidable in humans, we surely do not want in machines. Tools are there to enhance strength, not weakness.

"Before accepting an idea, think": this we "expect" from all.

I think the idea is mental association. In essence, the story's suggesting that people 'hallucinate' in just the same way as AI, taking an experience where there's an arbitrary connection to 'warm' or 'cold' and unjustifiably attributing that, using it in an arbitrary place because it's present in their 'weights'.

I think that's a good story, because I think such unjustified 'weights' DO have a profound effect. That it's BS is entirely the point. It's a fable about hallucination. It's part of intelligence.

> people "hallucinate"

Yes, but let us be clear about the critical point: humans do have a faculty - whether they use it or not - to check their thought for foundations, for validity. And this faculty is the condition for a legitimacy to make statements.

People may conjure unfounded ideas, immature constructs (this is studied since millennia): but well developed intellects then process those ideas, test them, refine them.

Given that it is relatively easy to be fooled, or dramatically easy (especially since mistakes can have a unbelievably staggering cost), and we are supposed to know that - after psychology, criminology etc., or just simply after the facts that we are more experienced than infants -, the problem of discrimination and reflection remain central and critical.

And (just in case): there is absolutely no need to emulate fools: the goal is the opposite.

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