Tuesday, 6 December 2022
“Tom, you’re on a roll with your career!” Thus reads the subject line of the latest email of the day.
This is fantastic news! Not “fantastic” in its most common sense, but rather in its alternative sense of “fanciful; remote from reality.” After all, I am well into my fourth year of retirement, and it is at least two years since my last paper was published, my last patents granted, and my last appearance at a professional conference. While it would be fun to believe that the cumulative mass of my accomplishments has somehow reached a critical point, tipped, and is now barreling along on its own like an ever-growing cartoon snowball, it is not so.
My fantastic career aside, I am curious about the truth value of the statement. Clearly it is not true, but in what way is it not true? One could simply say that it is a lie, but as the statement is no doubt generated by an algorithm, that seems both dubious and overwrought. A lie, I think, requires a degree of intention behind it, something I am loth to attribute to an algorithm. Of course, at some point a programmer constructed the phrase, and decided upon the conditions which would lead to its triggering. But it is a little difficult to say that the programmer was lying. No doubt there are some circumstances in which it would be true — that is, no doubt there are some members of Linked In, the company from which the ‘on a roll’ statement originates, are on a roll.
Reflecting on the matter, there are a large class of algorithmically generated messages that seem similar. My favorite, a message which dates back to the ancient days of the digital age, is “Sorry. I don’t understand the word ‘Sorry.’ ” Another example, which amuses me, is “Congratulations on your 462nd fastest run.” I don’t believe that that deserves congratulations; nor do I believe that such congratulations are sincere.
When I was a child, in what they used to call grammar school, people believed I was a bit slow. What that means, at least in the context of a supportive environment, is that I received a lot of positive feedback for achievements that did not merit it. Although the subsequent discovery that I was myopic and simply needed glasses to address my acadmic malaise addressed this issue, it left behind an abiding distaste for compliments of any sort. Yet, curiously, the computer-generated flattery does not bother me.