> For instance my Australian shepherd might not be able to bring me the newspaper; but if I really wanted her to do that task, I could slowly get her to approximate that behavior, and it would probably be satisfying to see progress in performance.
Given she's an Australian shepherd, it would probably be only a bit startling to subsequently come home and see her analyzing the finance section of the paper. :)
This is, I think, one of the failings of human ToM. We tend to underestimate entities which are different from us. The differences are not only of capacity and of information. They are differences of worldview, values, and biases that are very hard to capture, even between adult humans of different cultures. It's easy to imagine people as a less intelligent and less experienced versions of yourself, but that is not an accurate theory of their mind.
The same differences, only more so, are present between humans and dogs or humans and Siri. Given that the most empathetic and social people (with, I assume, a better theory of mind) are generally not found in technical roles, I wonder if they might find it easier to make that stretch and effectively use Siri or Alexa?
Ha yes, im saying it'd be difficult to get her to bring the paper because she is already so busy day trading dogecoin.
I hear what you are saying but given we are the designers of the siri 'mind', we are in a unique position to make it more human-centric. It will be easier in the long run to adapt siri to humans than the other way around.
Given she's an Australian shepherd, it would probably be only a bit startling to subsequently come home and see her analyzing the finance section of the paper. :)
This is, I think, one of the failings of human ToM. We tend to underestimate entities which are different from us. The differences are not only of capacity and of information. They are differences of worldview, values, and biases that are very hard to capture, even between adult humans of different cultures. It's easy to imagine people as a less intelligent and less experienced versions of yourself, but that is not an accurate theory of their mind.
The same differences, only more so, are present between humans and dogs or humans and Siri. Given that the most empathetic and social people (with, I assume, a better theory of mind) are generally not found in technical roles, I wonder if they might find it easier to make that stretch and effectively use Siri or Alexa?