This sign is a great example for helping to explain why chatbots present such a potent illusion.
A probably not short thread 🧵>>
('Splainers of Mastodon -- thread means please read what I've written before jumping in here to share your ideas.)
![Photo of a sign with a doorbell attached. The printed sign reads:
CURRENT GUGGENHEIM ACCES BY HUSKY CARD ONLY
[Logos for Amazon, FedEx, UPS]
DELIVERIES/VISITORS
PLEASE RING THIS DOORBELL
Delivery hours M-F 9:00am-(obscured)
University of Washington
Taped next to the doorbell is a hand written note that reads:
yes! it rang! Pelase wait 30 seconds before pressing again.
thanks!](https://cdn.masto.host/daircommunitysocial/media_attachments/files/117/128/663/635/636/605/original/3e2e51c30e0e9a6a.jpg)
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@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."
@troed Why do you think I would be interested in reading synthetic text?
@emilymbender Apologies - I thought you were interested in discourse grounded in science and facts.
@troed The output of a synthetic text extruding machine is neither.
@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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@emilymbender And LLM creators go to great lengths to use rhetorical tricks to push that illusion, such as first-person pronouns and use of emotion terms.
While you might think that understanding something someone wrote is simply a matter of unpacking the meaning (or message) they packed into the words, in fact what we do is much cooler and more involved:
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We keep in mind everything we know or believe about the authors knowledge and beliefs, about our common ground with the author, and about what the author believes about their intended audience, which might not be us.
(For more details and with citations, see the "... is a parlor trick" section of my recent encyclopedia entry on "AI"
https://faculty.washington.edu/ebender/papers/Bender-AI-2026.pdf )
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So, coming back to the sign, there are two mini-conversations here, with two diffferent authors, and with two overlapping intended audiences:
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![Photo of a sign with a doorbell attached. The printed sign reads:
CURRENT GUGGENHEIM ACCES BY HUSKY CARD ONLY
[Logos for Amazon, FedEx, UPS]
DELIVERIES/VISITORS
PLEASE RING THIS DOORBELL
Delivery hours M-F 9:00am-(obscured)
University of Washington
Taped next to the doorbell is a hand written note that reads:
yes! it rang! Pelase wait 30 seconds before pressing again.
thanks!](https://cdn.masto.host/daircommunitysocial/media_attachments/files/117/128/672/063/781/688/original/037ad013924df029.jpg)
The first author is a person or group of people speaking for the institution, giving instructions to people who wish to enter Guggenheim Hall but don't have a Husky card that is registered for the building.
It's the second author I'm particularly interested in here. The one behind the hand-written note.
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I am a bystander to both of these conversations. (My Husky card works here.) But the hand-written note immediately evokes for me someone who works in the building, likely has responsibility for reacting to the doorbell rings, and has an office not immediately next to this door.
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Meanwhile, I also see them modeling the state of mind of the impatient delivery person, who has pushed the button, but hasn't heard the ring (since the bell is close to the person's office, not this door), and then is doubting whether they pushed hard enough.
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The sign caught my attention because of the juxtaposition of the institutional language (fairly static information, stated by people who don't expect to actually interact with most readers directly) and the much more conversational hand-written note.
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The author of the note was a little flashy with their ability to model the state of mind of doorbell-pushers: The note was likely written in the wake of several noisy experiences on their end, with the solid expectation that similar circumstances would arise again, but it's addressed to someone(s) they haven't interacted with (yet).
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Because it only works because the readers can do the same thing, and construct what's going on for the writer by imagining their point of view.
When we do this with other people, it is lovely. Literally the stuff of relationships, communities, societies.
But it is also fundamental to how we interpret language and we can't just turn it off. And that is what chatbot purveyors are preying on with their product design.
/fin
