Can't or Won't?
Can’t as a cop-out, weaponized incompetence, and can you tell if your robot is lying?
Hello CouldBeWorsers, I have an ask. If you enjoyed reading this post, leave a like. It does two things: a) Helps me justify another day I spend doing this without getting myself a productive job b) Tells me which posts you like versus those that you don’t which is a good data point for me fine-tune what I write.
“I wish I could too but I just can’t”
I heard this phrase with annoying regularity from my friends the last time I took a sabbatical in 2015. I wanted to tell them “You can but you won’t” but I didn’t.
Can’t as a cop-out
I’ve told myself a lot of can't in my life, but some of the more persistent ones have been:
I can’t socialize or network with people.
I can’t run much.
I can’t remain interested in one thing long-term.
We all do it. It needn’t even be big, existential things.
Some simple examples:
I can’t make it to the party.
I can’t seem to focus at work.
I can’t find time to read.
Can’t is the ultimate cop-out. If can’t were an image it would be a person shrugging their shoulders or throwing up their hands. It would be the cartoon of a frustrated old man yelling at the clouds.
Let’s replay those examples but now with won’ts instead of can’ts.
I won’t make it to the party
I won’t focus at work.
I won’t find time to read
The meaning changes, often quite dramatically. For instance, I won’t find time to read as a statement will force you to unpeel more layers because the obvious question then is “Why not?”
Could be because…
I am too distracted
I find it too draining
I find it a lonely activity and would rather chat with people on social media
It could be any number of reasons but a can’t won’t give you those reasons, only the won’t will. (That sentence just rolls off the tongue doesn’t it?)
Coming back to my list of can't that which are actually won’t:
I won’t socialize or network with people
I won’t run much
I won’t remain interested in one thing long-term
Let’s take the first statement as an example. Why won’t I socialize or network with people? Some reasons I’ve come back with for myself:
I am hung up on my introversion
I find the activity high friction and draining
I’d rather do things I fully enjoy
My reflection started with the won’t which helped me unravel the reasons for why I was avoiding connecting with people rather than calling it out as something that I just can’t do.
Weaponized incompetence is a won’t in can’t clothing
At this point, I think the jig is increasingly up on weaponized incompetence. Several fantastic newsletters and blogs talk about it including Womaning in India by Mahima Vashisht. So man up and start making those checklists guys.
At its core though, weaponized incompetence is a symptom of the same problem - a won’t masquerading as a can’t.
“I just can’t do this kitchen stuff”
“I can never keep track of laundry schedule”
….are often said in a perplexed tone accompanied by a puzzled man-frown. In reality, they are all grumpy, lazy won’ts.
I won’t do them because you will.
Or, I won’t do them because they are boring.
Weaponized incompetence is everywhere.
Every time a customer service representative tells me “But sorry sir but we can’t do that” to a perfectly rational suggestion after they have fucked up my service is weaponized incompetence.
A peer who can’t keep track of a project well enough forcing you to shoulder the load of coordinating everything is weaponized incompetence.
Governments that can’t do anything effective (because they are just stupid and inefficient) are weaponized incompetence.
Capitalism itself hides behind a lot of can’ts. You can’t just dole out money to people. We can't cut taxes. We can’t just stop polluting one fine day, our entire economy will collapse.
Truth is, they all rather won’t.
Can’t in the time of sentient robots
Think of this iconic line from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
HAL 9000: "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that"
HAL 9000 is being a little disingenuous there, isn’t it? It should have been, “I won’t do that”
What happens to “can’t” in a world of bots?
If we all lived in Asimov’s world where robots followed clear, simplistic rules, we can be assured that when a robot says “I can’t” it means it. The robot must always obey the human command (unless it harms another human being).
However, we live in a transformer world, where models hallucinate and makeup shit as they go along. Can’t and won’t have gotten as fuzzy as talking to my 5-year-old nephew.
“Sorry but I can’t respond to that prompt,” says ChatGPT when I ask it to make up funny stories about famous personalities. Surely, it can right? It just won’t.
But then, it can’t do anything except for what it is trained to do so, philosophically, it just can’t do that. LLMs have no ideation of their own and no free will. They generate words based on a set of parameters and when some of those parameters restrict certain words they technically can’t.
Will there be a time when they are choosing though? Your bot makes a choice not to say something because it could be harmful to you at the moment. Maybe you are too emotional or maybe you’re driving or it decides that it will refuse a prompt. And when it does, maybe it tries to take the sting out using a fuzzy lie, “Sorry, but I just can’t seem to be able to respond to this prompt right now, try later”
Clearly, the robot is not being truthful right?
I can hear your argument brewing, “Hey, but isn’t the robot still relying on human inputs, all the learning, and optimizing for the constraints that humans have infused into it? It’s not technically using its free will to make the distinction.”
To which I ask, “Do humans really have free will”
And we talk endlessly until the universe cools down.
Could be Worse,
Tyag