A bigass analysis of a social blunder I made at the grocery store today, a ramble about how AI would be a cool thing if people used it as a tool and not a way of life, and a suggestion on how AI could be used to help me learn how to make less social blunders with my crazy autism powers. All of this is also peppered with many swear words, I sure do love cussing on the internet.
So I said some stupid shit at the store today, as one does when autistic as fuck and failing the D20 roll on empathy. I typically don't like AI, but I absolutely see valid use-cases for it. It dawned on me today as I was thinking about what it would logistically take to make a tool that can translate my less than pretty attempts at socializing into something useable as a functional human being, and that answer obviously couldn't be just getting fed phrases, because no matter how many phrases I know, there will be a situation in which I don't actually know why I tripped a social landmine, and I say some bullshit before I realize that that's not something I'm allowed to say. Much like a computer, it doesn't matter how many responses I learn, if I don't understand what I need to remove or improve for the next iteration, it's gonna be clunky every fucking time. I don't want to use AI like a way of life, I want to use it like duct tape.
AI isn't supposed to think for you, it's supposed to be a tool to turn thinking into learning and improving and finding out some other shit to look into. If you build a boat out of duct tape, sure yeah you can do that, but you'll never learn how to make a proper boat. If you use duct tape to tinker with components and hold things together and quickly attach shit while you work, you can build a proper boat using duct tape as a tool, and you can learn how to build a boat. AI isn't supposed to replace using your brain, it's supposed to be a tool to organize things and hold shit together, to categorize things a little faster than making a massive ass list.
Anyway- here's the idea. Today I met someone with OCD and what I wanted to communicate to them as they happened to bring it up (self deprecating) while packing some little tinkering things I bought (clay, tape, paper, etc. It's a whole thing.) was that I thought that their OCD was actually a strength, and they hated themselves for it because they weren't in the right environment. Yeah, packing groceries at speed while everyone is shouting and causing bigger messes is killing that woman, but she'd be a fucking excellent accountant. She fit everything neatly into one container when I bought two because I was sure I'd need two (and thought to ask if I'd rather use the container than grocery bags, to which I was enthused. Why would I waste plastic if I don't have to?). This woman found an answer, tetrised the FUCK out of my odds and ends, and then felt bad about it?? So you can clearly see my thinking at the moment here.
Here's how it actually went. I told her she had impressive packing skills and that I have a deep respect for people who can get the tent back into the bag after camping (good), she told me she had OCD and I saw that she probably struggled with a lot of things that I have just in a slightly different way (good to internally recognize) stumbled and clunkily tried to empathize and talked about people with autism in STEM (getting into mid range, maybe shut the hell up territory here), proclaimed that I was autistic when she looked confused and irate saying she didn't have autism and restated that she had OCD (this is where I should have diverted, and REALLY should have shut the hell up), and then I sort of short circuited the conversation realizing that I'd walked onto a landmine because you're not supposed to acknowledge struggle out loud.
Now, let's distill what happened there. Thinking backwards, I can see that I've breached several taboos without realizing it in the moment.
You do not tell people that their disabilities can be strengths. This is undeniably true, and it is important, but you're not allowed to tell people that. People hearing that they would be a great OCD accountant don't hear "I think you can do something with your unique strengths even though I know you'll still struggle in daily life at the same time, and I want to encourage you" they hear "you're not being disabled right, it wouldn't be hard if you just used this one simple trick". You do not acknowledge the positives of something considered negative, it is impolite and seen as dismissive. I massively fucked that up and didn't realize until after I left the store.
Assuming that my experiences are universal, and that someone actually knows what the hell I'm talking about. I didn't even consider that this woman wouldn't see my silly ass in the eccentric clothes I wear and the odd facial expressions I make to stretch my face when I don't think people are watching me and go "AUTISM WOMAN!". To me, I see people with autism and it's very easy to tell that someone will probably see things a little more closely to how I do. I have a similar type of pattern recognition with other neurodivergencies, but it's not nearly as accurate. This may also be based in traumatic hypervigilance, I haven't really ironed out where the autism stops and the cptsd starts with that one, but it's less than relevant right now to knowing that retrospectively, that woman probably wasn't immediately seeing that I approach things in an odd and clunky sort of way. From the perspective of someone who knows nothing about the strange woman buying binder clips and modeling clay and a tackle box among other things, I could be a teacher who is setting up for a craft week and can't be fucked to remember exactly what the woman said she had, or maybe I could be a politician who wants social points despite not caring, or maybe I'm a little hard of hearing and I just misheard. Never assume someone has any idea what the hell you're talking about, but also don't point out that you don't know what they don't know. Do not EVER suggest that someone might not know something. If they don't actually know something, it's more common to get defensive than be thankful that you want to show them, and if they do know something, they'll assume you're trying to talk to them like they're not intelligent.
I sort of just stopped talking after I realized I'd stepped on a landmine. You are only allowed to do that if you are good at looking guilty. Did I feel guilty? Absolutely. Am I good at showing that subtle emotion on my face in a way that isn't a cartoonish caricature? Hell no. I sort of just quietly stared. If you aren't good at expressing that you feel like an asshole, then you aren't allowed to stop talking. Change the subject to something unrelated and try to play it off, maybe a light amount of self deprecating apology, but do not just quietly process. If someone sees you staring at them after you say some stupid shit, they can't see the gears turning in your head telling you you're a moron and trying to calculate what to say next, they see someone who said something bad and is now staring expectantly, or perhaps trying to take back something that they don't want to be in trouble for even though they meant. For me, I don't usually say shit I don't mean, I say things I mean and if someone has a problem with my core beliefs driving it, I'll hear them out. If I still disagree, I'll tell them that and agree to respectfully not think they're right while they also respectfully think I'm not right either. Most people aren't good at that, and would rather avoid conflict than get curious about why the conflict exists. If you say some stupid shit, you have to be really careful explaining what's going on, because most people see that as a form of lying to cover up actually believing the stupid shit you said instead of seeing it as a translation error of what you actually believe. Once someone thinks you believe things that they strongly disagree with or that makes them uncomfortable (such as that they are an idiot, or that you see yourself as better, or that you don't care about their pain) it is damn near impossible to do anything to convince them otherwise. You can go a different route and show them your beliefs in other unrelated areas to paint a more complete picture of yourself and hope that they're willing to see the nuance and not softlock into misunderstanding based on that natural sort of vilification people do, or you can quietly apologize and utilize smalltalk techniques to find less treacherous taboo territory to at least get to the end of the interaction, but it is very unlikely that explaining yourself will ever do you as much good as just changing the subject.
This was a retail worker, and so the margin of taboo topics gets much stricter. In a bar, or at a park, if you start talking to someone they absolutely have the option to opt out. You can say some dumb shit by accident and they can raise an eyebrow and disengage. Retail workers are paid to pretend that they like you and to not object to anything, even if it causes them great discomfort. Their livelihood depends on them taking the brunt force of people with varying intentions, some of which is clumsy autism socializing, and some of which is direct hostility. Again from that point of people not being able to see your intentions, and the fact that someone has less to lose from being wrong about someone being autistic than being wrong about someone being hostile, these workers experience a daily sort of trauma response that reinforces that anyone who is odd or weird will be the least amount of threat if treated as hostile and needing customer service fawning rather than someone who wants to connect and understand. If in doubt about whether a retail worker really wants to talk to you about something they seem amiable to discuss, assume they do not. Assume that anyone who does not have the immediate easy and free option of leaving, someone who is held there by some amount of force, does not in fact want to discuss anything that is not surface level pleasantry if they don't ask something specific. If they ask for specifics and seem to hold niche knowledge, proceed with caution, but do not assume that someone asking detached sort of "yes and" questions actually wants to talk to you when they are not easily able to leave or tell you to fuck off.
People do not like thinking. Don't make people think, they hate it. I see someone having a problem, and I hurt for them, and I go "what do I do when I have a problem?" and then try to help them. When I have a problem, I try to fix it, and I look for other perspectives and research and odd solutions. Other people do not want opinions and perspectives, they want comfort and acknowledgement. If someone got their wallet stolen and is crying, they do not want to be told that you can lock credit cards. People would prefer you circle around and give them a hug and tell them that you would be upset too in that situation (with NO details on why, don't go too far into your own story, it's seen as sidetracking and not empathizing if you actually describe why you feel empathy) and then have to struggle for a week to find out how to lock their card. People do not like being asked to consider things and they do not like being given solutions unless you're offering to do it for them (and even then, sometimes this is also bad if it's something they haven't specifically voiced wanting some version of). People want you to watch them fall face first on the concrete and say "man, that looked like it hurt" not "I have a good dentist if you need a referral". Sharing these things is seen as "bossy" and makes people think you see them as incompetent, or that you don't value their autonomy. They do not see you wishing someone had offered you a dentist a few years back when you cracked your teeth, they see you telling them that they're incapable of finding their own dentist, and they see it as you saying that they aren't valid to be crying about their cracked teeth.
NOW- All of these things are descriptors and observations I've made over a lifetime, and logical translations of something that has always escaped me, the fine art of being more comfortable feeling validated and supported than with fixing problems, and the very difficult path of trying to translate my reverse approach in a way that makes people feel valued and respected without just resigning to never speak again. What if these sort of observations could be processed with the same sort of language processing that makes an LLM able to determine what you're most likely asking it to reference, pulling the references, synthesizing the most likely string of words that other people have used in a formula that incorporates your specific string of words and associated references to synonyms and context and such, and then form an answer out of it that sounds like people in the same way that you can clip together soundbites into a digital voice if you have enough audio samples.
I don't think having phrases fed back to me would really help anything at all. I'm not interested in being given a canned response that a neurotypical would come up with. I'm surrounded by those all the time and I still can't figure out how the hell to make them myself. What if I could make a database of taboos and social conventions and all those little things that come so naturally to other people, and I could make a tool that will highlight sentences of my responses to things and match it with the parts of the database that it flags as "why was what I said some dumb shit". Hell, link me to it directly, maybe have some varied examples of each so I can look at them.
Would other people maybe also be able to use this? Hell if I know.