Chit-Chat

I am at the checkout, buying snacks.
'Have you tried these?' says the checkout guy, holding up my Wild West Honey BBQ beef jerky.
'Yes', I say, wondering if he is obliged by law to disclose some small risk of death ensuing from their consumption.
'They're really good' he continues.
'They are' I concur.
I leave the store, wondering what that exchange was all about.

The anthropologist Jared Diamond writes that until recently New Guinea tribesmen from different tribes were obliged, on meeting each other in the forest, to identify some family connection or else be duty-bound to engage in combat. This is partly why it was so dangerous for outsiders.

In our Western, urban, culture we can't go about attacking anyone who isn't a distant relative, so we have developed a new ritual: chit-chat. The purpose of chit-chat is to identify (affective) relationships. Things we both like, for example.

This is helpful if you are trying to understand the general rule. You can say all kinds of things like:
- I like your shoes (we both like your shoes, therefore).
- I like this product that you are purchasing, too.
- I also hate this weather.
- I too think Dominic Cummings is a twit.
- I also found the Tiger King shocking.

Notice how what is going on here is all about affective coherence: I may not be an actual relative of yours but I will be nice to you - maybe even help you - if we can establish that we like the same things. If we feel similarly.

If you were programming an AI to engage in chit-chat, that's where you'd start: things that the AI feels strongly about, and where they overlap with the things that the other person feels strongly about.

Curious, isn't it?


Image: Cottonbro