@emilymbender

Thinking about how your reader may emotionally respond to your message takes time and effort.

You instinctively know when you receive an email that’s been written with how you’ll personally feel reading it in mind.

Sadly the working day can be filled with mindless messages these days - not all automated AI slop, but because often we’re too busy to care what others may feel, we just want them to know facts and respond. We’ve collectively lost something.

@emilymbender Long time MAIHT3K listener and AI Con fan, first time reply guy 👋
I love the comparison you make here, and I think you might enjoy this short TED talk about makeshift signs if you haven’t seen it already 🙂
https://youtu.be/5CvlKCBrPHI

And thank you for introducing me to the word/concept of intersubjectivity, something I hadn’t heard of before!

@emilymbender I see what you did with your top post. That was very clever.

@emilymbender I uploaded the image to my locally hosted quite small LLM (Gemma 4 12B QAT for those interested) and posed the following question:

"Please tell me why you think somebody wrote the attached note."

The answer was:

"Based on the content of the note and the context of the sign, here is why someone likely wrote it:

1. To Confirm the Doorbell is Working
The note starts with "yes! it rang!", which suggests that some visitors or delivery people might have assumed the doorbell was broken and were pressing it repeatedly because they weren't getting an immediate response.

2. To Prevent "Spamming" the Doorbell
The instruction to "wait 20 seconds before pressing again" is a way to manage the flow of visitors. If someone presses the button continuously, it can be very disruptive to the people inside the building. This note ensures that the person inside has enough time to hear the chime, realize someone is there, and move to the door.

3. To Avoid Security or System Lockouts
Many modern electronic doorbell systems (like the one shown) have a "spam" protection feature. If the button is pressed too many times in a short period, the system might temporarily lock out the button or trigger a security alert. The note is a practical way to prevent people from accidentally triggering these technical issues.

In short, it was written to improve the experience for both the visitor and the people inside by encouraging patience and ensuring the doorbell system functions correctly for everyone."

@emilymbender that is a glorious piece of signage! 😬

A point I frequently make when talking about chatbots is that their output only seems to make sense because we are making sense of it. And worse, we can only do that sense-making by projecting a mind behind the text, something we do reflexively.

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