Ask HN: Human psychology of non-AI-native users

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47428211

by ajaystream • 4 months ago

1 3 4 months ago

news.ycombinator.com

Many of you are building AI for non-technical solutions ... legal etc. How are you dealing with the human psychology of users having to correct behavior that was described before every once in a while ?

ajaystream2• 4 months ago

I am building in finance, where workflows dominate - ie if A then B, but if ~ A then C then D etc. Configuration is a major challenge, but AI helps in getting there, but ever so often as you know - LLMs to the wrong thing even though they had been told many times over before. Users tend to abandon the interface and then manually make their updates. Is there a user interaction model to get the user to stay engaged ?

PaulHoule• 4 months ago

I have so many slide decks from the 2010s when I was working on ideas that were way ahead of their time.

One of my realization was that intelligent systems had to be organized entirely around workflows, that is, you'd have steps that could be easily automated, others that had to be manual (e.g. either for legal reasons or because some physical thing has to happen) and others that could go either way. There had to be a process that makes it straightforward to route a task either way, have a person override something, and to the maximum extent, patch the system to make that override permanent. If you didn't have all these things you could have an AI as capable as we have today and... zero business value in the end.

That feeling you are being ignored actually causes strong reactions in people that people aren't all that aware of or feel like it is safe to talk about -- that is, we live in family, political and business systems that ignore us all the time and we've learned to ignore that feeling of being ignored.

I don't know exactly how to invoke that feeling in you but you could find it in yourself. I might imagine myself being erased with a big rubber eraser and feel a sinking feeling in my gut as it all goes dark or the feeling of bracing myself as my foot slips and I go over the edge backwards over a 300 foot cliff.

Practically rather than feeling these feelings (that go back to your feeling ignored by your mother when you were an infant) people often have their brain short circuit facing situations like this so you get the avoidance, the "not being engaged", etc. The short answer is "at any cost don't put people in this situation", if you must I don't have an answer, but I do know if you push people hard on this kind of thing you will be looking for new people to replace them and find the role is very high turnover.

ajaystream2• 4 months ago

I hardly felt that the problem could be answered in such poetic and psychological eloquence. I get what you are saying.

Ask HN: Human psychology of non-AI-native users

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