Negotiation theory and human agency

January 27, 2024 in reading-notes

Negotiation has been a term I mostly associated with business or politics in the past, involving intense debates and advocating for the interests of each party. However, I began to appreciate and explore this concept more intentionally since last year, when I was exposed to a more diverse set of collaboration scenarios. Then, I realized negotiation is everywhere and understanding its history, philosophy, and practice is important for thinking about how humans interact in a world of complexity. With a background in behavioral science, human-computer interaction, and design research, I began to see deeper connections between negotiation with each of these fields.

Evolution of negotiation theory

Two notable milestones in negotiation literature are Getting to Yes (1981) by Fisher and Ury, and Never Split the Difference (2016) by Chris Voss. The former focuses on identifying interests and creating value for both parties, while the latter recognizes the emotional nature of negotiation and emphasizes the importance of building tactical empathy to gather information and influence the other party's thinking.

The shift from objectively identifying a win-win solution to challenging the idea of seeking a compromise is fascinating and counterintuitive at first. As the title Never Split the Difference suggests, Voss believes it’s better to not make a deal if compromise is involved. Instead, drawing from his experience as a former FBI hostage negotiator, he focused on uncovering Black Swans, which are hidden pieces of information that can change the course of a negotiation and push the other party towards a deal. This became his primary strategy for finding unconventional solutions.

This evolution in negotiation philosophy is an interesting parallel with the shift from classical economics to behavioral economics — both evolved to recognize the limitations of purely rational and utility-maximizing models. Similar to Never Split the Difference, behavioral economics shifts the focus from simplified, rational economic models to a more nuanced understanding of human behavior, which is shaped by emotions, biases, and heuristics.

Human agency at heart

People want to be heard, understood, and respected. In Never Split the Difference, building tactical empathy in negotiation means ensuring sufficient trust and safety for a real conversation to begin. Since change represents uncertainty and people want to be in control, saying no to a proposal is the easiest way to maintain that control and the status quo. This completely changed my perspective on the nature of negotiation because it’s ultimately about addressing fundamental human needs with psychological principles. It’s not just about fighting for individual interests, it’s much more about building connections, helping each other feel in control, and identifying creative solutions together.

Another memorable idea is that “Yes” has multiple layers (i.e. counterfeit, confirmation, and commitment), while “No” is the gateway to “Yes.” Saying “No” allows us time to pivot and adjust, creating an environment for the one “Yes” that mattered and gives us an opportunity to convince others that the proposed change is more advantageous than maintaining the status quo. Then, negotiation is the process of helping the other party feel protected and safe, so they can consider other possibilities with a relaxed mindset.

This also resembles the dynamics of how humans interact with technology, especially with AI systems. When systems (e.g. algorithms) collecting human input (e.g. data) without making people feel heard, respected, or in control, it becomes difficult to establish a genuine conversation (e.g. engagement). An effective feedback and control mechanism needs to account for human motivation and provide a clear incentive structure, so that the value and impact of input is meaningful. When considering human-computer interaction through the lens of human-machine negotiation, it’s interesting that we’re applying similar psychological principles to help individuals maintain their agency as foundational needs.

Practice of tactical empathy

When it comes to tactical steps to build tactical empathy or uncovering the black swan, the approach mentioned in Never Split the Difference shared a lot of similarities with user experience research moderation practices. Methods like asking calibrated question, focusing on discovery and uncovering insights, and active listening are all familiar to researchers. Although the relationship between a user and a researcher isn’t a negotiating one, the process and desired outcome is similar. Both the negotiator and the researcher aim to uncover insights about the other party to deeply understand their needs, so they can identify unconventional solutions or framing that change the course of the conversation or strategy.

Finally, the practice of emotional labeling reminds me of methods used in psychotherapy. It involves identifying and verbalizing the predictable emotions of a situation, which helps build empathy and insights for both parties. Once the emotion is labeled, we can talk about them without getting wound up because using language to objectify negative thoughts make them less frightening and disrupt their raw intensity.

At its core, negotiation is not about being competitive and skillful in applying complex methods or tactics. It is all about creating the right environment for genuine connection and conversation to begin.

Elon Musk's production philosophy

November 23, 2023 in reading-notes

Reading notes from Elon Musk, by Walter Isaacson.

01 Musk’s Production Algorithm

First-principles thinking has been a well-established practice for some time, which involves questioning all assumptions about a problem and creating new solutions from the ground up. Reading about how Elon Musk applies it extensively in design, engineering, and manufacturing, from building rockets to designing car factories, made me appreciate even more its elegance in finding creative solutions to complex problems.

Here is Elon Musk’s version (“Algorithm”) of applying first-principles thinking:

Question every requirement. Each should be attributed to the person who made it. Think for yourself and don't simply follow instructions. Never accept a requirement blindly just because it comes from a department.
Delete any part or process you can. You may have to add them back later. In fact, if you do not end up adding back at least 10% of them, then you didn’t delete enough.
Simplify and optimize. This should come after step two. A common mistake is to simplify and optimize a part or a process that should not exist.
Accelerate cycle time. Every process can be speeded up. But only do this after you have followed the first three steps. In the Tesla factory, Musk mistakenly spent a lot of time accelerating processes that he later realized should have been deleted.
Automate. That comes last.

Noteworthy examples of applying first-principles thinking:

Innovate on material and product design. When designing the cybertruck, the Tesla team initially considered using titanium for its durability. However, Musk was reevaluating the material choice for SpaceX's rocket ship at the time and realized stainless steel could be a viable option, which could also be used for a pickup truck. A stainless steel body eliminated the need painting and could bear some of the vehicle’s structural load. This opened up new possibilities for a more futuristic and edgier design, featuring straight planes and sharp angles, which pushed the team to explore new ideas.
Cut costs in the auto and rocket industries. Musk believed that reusable rockets were essential for establishing a multi-planetary civilization, particularly for sending humans to Mars. To achieve this, he introduced the concept of the "idiot index," which measures the ratio of a component's total cost to the cost of its raw materials. A high idiot index indicates overly complex design or inefficient manufacturing processes. By reducing the idiot index, Musk aimed to lower the cost of rocket production and make space travel more affordable.
Reinvent the policy incentive structure. Musk proposed an alternative incentive process to the traditional "cost-plus" contracts used by NASA and the Defense Department. Instead of providing detailed specifications and awarding contracts to large companies, SpaceX introduced a new method where private companies bid on specific tasks or missions. This approach allowed SpaceX to have more control over the design and construction of their rockets. They took on financial risk and were only paid upon successfully completing milestones, which incentivized results and fostered innovation.

Photo by Sebastian Leonhardt on Unsplash

Another important production philosophy of Musk is to have tight end-to-end quality and cost control through vertical integration, while also applying first-principles thinking:

Design-manufacturing feedback loop: Musk follows the principle instilled by Steve Jobs and Jony Ive at Apple, where design is not just about aesthetics but also about connecting the looks of a product to its engineering. However, Musk takes it a step further by applying this obsession not only to product design but also to the underlying science, engineering, and manufacturing. This approach highlights the importance of connecting the art form with its underlying science, which is one of the key themes in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
Redesigning the manufacturing process: While creating a good car is important, Musk believes that creating efficient manufacturing processes and factories is even more crucial. In order to have tight control over the manufacturing process, Musk redesigned the assembly line. This involved questioning every requirement, making quick decisions to change or remove elements, and iterating on a daily basis. This design-manufacturing feedback loop has given Tesla a competitive advantage in its manufacturing process, resulting in solutions that are simple in design, communication, and cost.

Photo by Maksym Kaharlytskyi on Unsplash

02 Inspirations from science fictions, toys, and games

Musk often thinks at the scale of what truly impacts humanity, and this includes endeavors in space travel, internet infrastructure, sustainable energy, and artificial intelligence. He believes technology does not automatically progress, it requires human agency. While he sees the mass production of electric cars as inevitable, he believes that becoming a space-facing civilization is not. For example, although America had achieved sending men to the moon in the 1970s, there had been little progress until Musk founded SpaceX.

Musk had founded SpaceX, he liked to say, to increase the chances of human consciousness surviving by making us a multi-planetary species. Tesla and SolarCity were established to lead the way towards a sustainable energy future. Starlink was created to promote freedom of information, while Optimus and Neuralink were launched to develop human-machine interfaces that would protect us from malevolent artificial intelligence.

Beyond thinking at the grand, historical scale of humanities, I really enjoyed learning how he took inspiration from science fictions, toys, and games, exemplifying combined creativity at the intersection of arts and technology.

Inspiration from science fictions

The most notable source of sci-fi inspiration was from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which featured a supercomputer designed to figure out the “Answer to The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.” Moreover, the idea for Neuralink was inspired by the space-travel novels Culture by lain Bank, which feature a human-machine interface technology called “neural lace” that is implanted into people and can connect all of their thoughts to a computer.

Inspiration from toys

Musk mentioned getting ideas from the design of toys and the production process of the toy industry. For example, a little model car has inspired him to make real cars using big casting presses and Legos helped him understand the importance of precision manufacturing. When Musk inspected the Lego factory floor, he learned that each piece is accurate and identical to within ten microns, which means any part can easily be replaced by another — precision is not expensive, it’s mostly about caring to make it precise. On the production process, Musk also learned that toy companies need to produce things very quickly and cheaply without flaws and manufature them all by Christmas.

Inspiration from video games

When designing new car models for Tesla and someone proposed something conventional, Musk would push back and forth to the car from the video game Halo, Cyberpunk 2077, or from Riddle Scott’s movie Blade Runner as design inspiration. The other genre of games Musk loved is strategy games, including Civilization, Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, and Polytopia. Players in these games take turns making moves as they compete to win a military or economic campaign using clever strategy, resource management, and decision-tree tactical thinking. Musk’s passion for strategy games provides a window to understand his intensity, focus, competitiveness, die-hard attitudes, and love of strategy for business.

03 Bridging virtual and physical AI

Solving full autonomous driving is to solve real-world AI and Musk attempted to bridge virtual and physical artificial intelligence with Tesla and Twitter/X, which could provide the data sets and the processing capability for both approaches: teaching machines to navigate in physical space and to answer questions in natural language. In his grand vision, with Full Self-Driving, the Otimus robot, and the Dojo ML supercomputer, Tesla will not just be a car or clean-energy company, it will be an artificial intelligence company that operated not only in the virtual world of chatbots but also in the physical real world of factories and roads.

Musk sees his ventures as different, yet connected experiments for exploring AI.

Tesla: Besides freeing people from the drudgery of driving, Tesla aims to eliminate the need for people to own cars. Musk envisions a future dominated by Robotaxis, driverless vehicles that can be summoned, take passengers to their destinations, and move on to the next customer. While some Robotaxis may be owned by individuals, most would be owned by fleet companies or Tesla itself.
X/Twitter: The video footage from self-driving cars and the posts on Twitter offer vast flows of real-time data for training and analysis. Musk sees the Twitter feed as a representation of humanity's collective knowledge, capturing real-life human conversations, news, interests, trends, arguments, and lingo.
Neuralink: A device to explore the human-machine interface by connecting our brains to computers through a skull-implanted chip. This allows for faster information exchange and promotes collaboration between humans and machines.
OpenAI: Musk initially had the vision to make OpenAI truly open, allowing many people to build systems based on its source code. He believes that the best defense against AI misuse is to empower as many individuals as possible with AI technology.

04 The other sides of Elon Musk as a human

Much more can be said about Elon Musk's achievements as a technology entrepreneur. However, beyond his accomplishments, the biography also sheds light on other aspects of Elon Musk's life, including his role as a partner, father, and friend. It explores his risk-taking nature, a maniacal sense of urgency, recklessness, mood swings, and occasional toxicity towards towards people around him. Elon Musk exemplifies the human experience - daring to dream big and change the world, while also grappling with his limitations and weaknesses.

If anything, reading Elon Musk made me realize the greatness we can achieve as humans, while reminding us of the underlying trade-offs we’re constantly making for ourselves, our loved ones, and the environment.

Finite and infinite games as modern analogies

September 06, 2023 in reading-notes

I was first introduced to Finite and Infinite Games in 2016, a book by James P. Carse, who was a Professor of History and Literature of Religion at NYU. At the time, its influence was cited by Chinese tech entrepreneurs like Wang Xing, founder of Meituan, and Kevin Kelly, cofounder of Wired magazine and author of Out of Control. Lately, I started this book out of curiosity to rethink the familiar concept of gameplay in everyday life.

01 Boundary differentiates finite and infinite games

As the title suggests, Carse argues that there are two types of game in the world: finite and infinite games. Finite game is played for the purpose of winning, with an agreed winner and an end, whereas an infinite game is played for the purpose of continuing the play.

To play a finite game, players must agree to a set of externally defined spatial and numerical boundaries. For example, a game is played in that place, with those people. Each game is defined by its rules, or its range of limitations on the players, which allow considerable room for choice within those restraints and by which the players can agree who has won.

On the contrary, an infinite game does not have such boundaries. The rules of an infinite game evolve to prevent anyone from winning the game and to bring as many people as possible into the play. This resembles the mechanics of open-world games like Minecraft and The Legend of Zelda, where players can freely choose how to approach the game without the traditional linear structure. In short, finite players play within boundaries; infinite players play with boundaries.

Emotionally, it’s interesting to note that finite game feels serious because of the competitive nature of the zero-sum game, whereas infinite game comes with laughter and feels like play because new possibilities are continuously discovered to be explored with other players.

02 Power through title is won in a finite game

In a finite game, what one wins is a title. When a person is known by title, the attention is on a completed past and may take a person out of play. On the other hand, infinite players are only known by their names and the attention of others is open to the possibility of their future interactions. This is a gentle reminder to focus on the concrete, specific person, instead of the abstract titles.

Carse argues that titles are theatrical, where each title has a specified ceremonial form of behavior. This reminds me of a common improv acting technique to assign titles to your partner to shape the relationship in the narrative. For example, using titles such Captain, Mrs., Professor, Comrade, Father, Secretary signals the mode (e.g. appropriate respect), the content (e.g. only certain subjects are suitable for discussion with the District Attorney), and the manner (e.g. shaking hands, bowing, averting the eyes) of address.

Unsurprisingly, titles also conveyed power. Power can only be measured in relation to others and is determined by the amount of resistance one can displace within spatial and temporal limits. Those around them are expected to withdraw their opposition and conform to their will in the area (i.e. the game) the title was won. Validity of these titles depends on the repeatability of the game.

The finite player plays to be powerful, whereas the infinite player plays with self-sufficient strength. Power refers to the freedom people have within limits, strength is the freedom people have with limits. Strength is allowing others to do what they wish in the course of my play with them, whereas power is considering how much resistance can I overcome relative to others.

Carse further argues that society is a finite game whereas culture is an infinite game. A society preserves its memory of past winners with record-keeping functions like large bureaucracies to maintain social order. Culture, on the other hand, has no boundaries and anyone can participate and shape. Cultural deviation does not return us to the past, but continues what had begun and not finished in the past. In contrast, social convention requires that a completed past be repeated in the future.

03 Storytelling can be seen as an infinite game

Storytelling can be seen as an infinite game. A good story presents a vision that moves and inspires you with its underlying belief. The interactive and engaging elements of storytelling is what truly connects the speaker and the listener. The end of a compelling story is the new beginning of the listener’s imagination and reflection on their own journey, which is similar to how an infinite game continues the play without true ending.

When comparing storytelling with explanation, Carse argues that explanation settles issues, showing that matters should reasonably end as they have. Narrative raises issues and inspires reflections in others. In this case, explanation sets the need for further inquiry aside, whereas narrative invites us to rethink what we thought we knew. I see where Carse’s argument is coming from, but am not convinced that explanation is a finite game in this sense.

The concept of explanation actually makes me think of its inherent role in interpreting and predicting the future. If the rules governing past events can be discovered and explained, we can make better prediction about the future. This captures an important philosophy of user experience research as a discipline: if we can understand the motivation that guides human behaviors and perceptions, we can meaningfully derive aggregate patterns of human needs to inform investments for the future. Investing in research is a way to play the infinite game, where the focus is to co-create a long-term vision on the horizon. The more insightful framework we have to understand a problem space based on existing behaviors, the better we can predict and build for the future. In this example, explanation is also an infinite game that opens up new possibilities.

04 Garden is an infinite game, while machine isn’t

Carse further extends the finite and infinite games framework to the machine and garden analogy. Think of a gardener who uses machine as a tool to help with gardening. Machine is a finite game because it is operated to complete a task. When it is most effective, the tool becomes invisible and eliminates itself because the effort is minimal. Garden, on the other hand, is a place of growth and maximized spontaneity. “To garden is to design a culture capable of adjusting to the widest possible range of surprise in nature.”

Machinery can exist in the garden quite as finite games can be played within an infinite game. Technology is a tool that helps with gardening as a means to an end, not the end itself. The question is not one of restricting machines from the garden but asking whether a machine serves the interest of the garden.

Additionally, the relationship between the machine and its operator is very much like how humans interact with technology today. We often think of a machine as a tool—the extended arms and legs of the operator. However, Carse suggested that “to use the machine for control is to be controlled by the machine.” For example, when using a search engine, many start with a broad query then gradually refine and add keywords as they review the result. This is not how we naturally talk to others when we look for things. Search engines are designed to help look up information today as a tool, but we as operators are also trained to interact with it in such specific ways.

05 Celebrate spontaneity and forgo control

In the garden analogy, gardeners celebrate variety and spontaneity, which may seem chaotic and out of control on the flip side. But vitality comes from an abundance of styles and sources of change. Gardeners are acutely attentive to the deep patterns of natural order, while having the freedom to choose how to play with nature and its force.

If we play the finite game, the more power we exercise over nature, the more powerless we become before it. In a matter of months we can cut down a rainforest that took tens of thousands of years to grow, but we are helpless in repulsing the desert that takes its place. The human desire to control and organize chaos means transforming the remote into the familiar. When we attempt to take control of nature, we’re essentially reducing an unpredictable vitality to a predictable mass. Sometimes, the desire for control, just like the need to declare war, is a way for us to re-identify ourselves.

Ultimately, Carse gently nudges us to rethink the type of game we are playing. When it comes to interacting with other humans or with nature, it’s easy to go straight to playing the finite game, so we can gain the immediate reward quicker. Carse reminds us to think about the trade-offs behind these finite games and whether they truly serve the interest of the garden—the infinite game—that we are working towards.

The art of loving

December 04, 2022 in reading-notes

I initially read The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm in July 2022, in the hope of reflecting and learning systematically about the theory, science, and best practices of love. The more I learn, the stronger I felt that the education of love is long overdue and missing from our conversations today. I love how Fromm explains the evolution of love as a concept in the context of our biological needs as humans and the Western capitalist society in which we live. In retrospect, many common misconceptions of love could have been avoided have I encountered this book earlier. I noted a few key themes that I deeply resonate with as I go through the book:

Fromm argues Love is Giving

1. Common misconception: Most people see the problem of love primarily as that of being loved, rather than that of loving, of one’s capacity to love. People think that to love is simple, but that to find the right object to love—or to be loved by—is difficult. Fromm argues love is the activity of giving, which lies the highest expression of vitality and productiveness.

2. In capitalist society, love becomes package and commodities of exchange, as being lovable and attractive usually means a package of qualities which are popular and sought after on the personality market for most people. Falling in love becomes a bargain; “the object should be desirable from the the standpoint of its social value, and at the same time should want me, considering my overt and hidden assets and potentialities.”

3. The education of love, and of mature, loving qualities, is missing. As in learning any other art (e.g. music, medicine, engineering), one must both learn the theory and the practice. However, “in spite of the deep-seated craving for love, almost everything else is considered to be more important than love: success, prestige, money, power—almost all our energy is used for the learning of how to achieve these aims and almost none to learn the art of loving.”

How might we develop the ability to love?

4. The ability to love as an act of giving depends on the character development of the person. It assumes the person has overcome dependency, narcissistic omnipotence, the wish to exploit others, or to hoard, and has acquired faith in his own human powers, courage to rely on his powers in the attainment of his goals.

5. The ability to love requires care, respect, responsibility, and knowledge. Respect (the root of the word respicere = to look at) is the ability to see a person as he is, to be aware of his unique individuality. Respect means the concern that the other person should grow and unfold as he is. Respect, thus, implies the absence of exploitation.

6. To respect a person is not possible without knowing him; care and responsibility would be blind if they were not guided by knowledge. I personally love this somewhat brutal analogy: “the child takes something apart, breaks it up in order to know it; or it takes an animal apart; cruelly tears off the wings of a butterfly in order to know it, to force its secret. The cruelty itself is motivated by something deeper: the wish to know the secret of things and of life.”

7. Common misconception: For most people, their own person, as well as others, is soon explored and soon exhausted. It’s easy to assume we already know our partner when we become familiar with each other. But there were more depth in the experience of the other person—if one can experience the infiniteness of his personality—the other person would never be so familiar. Then the experience of overcoming the barriers and separateness might occur everyday anew.

8. In modern society, man overcomes his unconscious despair by the routine of amusement, the passive consumption of sounds and sights offered by the amusement industry; furthermore by the satisfaction of buying ever new things, and soon exchanging them for others. Automatons cannot love; they can exchange their “personality packages” and hope for a fair bargain.

9. Love is possible only if two persons communicate with each other from the center of their existence. Real conflicts between two people, those which do not serve to cover up or to project, but which are experienced on the deep level of inner reality to which they belong, are not destructive. They lead to clarification, they produce a catharsis from which both persons emerge with more knowledge and more strength. There is only one proof for the presence of love: the depth of the relationship, and the aliveness and strength in each person concerned.

10. To master any art, anyone must begin by practicing disciplines, concentration and patience throughout every phase of his life. Concentration is a necessary condition for the mastery of an art. This lack of concentration is clearly shown in our difficulty in being alone with ourselves. To be able to concentrate means to be able to be alone with oneself—and paradoxically, this ability is precisely a condition for the ability to love. To learn concentration requires avoiding, as far as possible, trivial conversation, that is, conversation which is not genuine.

11. Love also requires rational faith. Just as the purpose of education is to help the child realize their full potentialities. The opposite of education is manipulation, which is based on the absence of faith in the growth of potentialities, and on the conviction that a child will be right only if the adults put into them what is desirable and suppress what seems to be undesirable. Having faith in another person means to be certain of the reliability and unchangeability of his fundamental attitudes, of the core of his personality, of his love. To have faith requires courage, the ability to take a risk, the readiness even to accept pain and disappointment.

Canterbury Tales and value of the ordinary

February 13, 2018 in reading-notes

This semester, I take a year-long course on Chaucer's literature and we were assigned to read the Canterbury Tales for the spring term. We are now at the Miller's Tale from the first fragment, but I found it quite difficult to appreciate the value behind these medieval comedic stories, where its narration of the ordinary people and their lives are filled with jokes (and sadly I do not find it funny in anyways), adulteries, and superficial horseplays. The style of Medieval conversations for the lower class uses plenty of coarse and even "bawdy" language in their dialogue and storytelling.

Canterbury tales mural by Ezra Winter. North Reading Room, west wall, Library of Congress John Adams Building, Washington, D.C.

During this week's office hour, I asked my professor "what’s the value of comedy, beside serving as a satire and reflecting the state of society at the time? It seems like tragedy has more 'literary value,’ because the themes in tragedy seemed more eternal in humanity research." My professor replied, "the value of comedy lies exactly in the narration of the ordinary. Comedy reflects the social convention at the time, the thoughts, the emotions, the constraints, and the dialogue of the average people … the 'invisible' population from heroic or epic stories. The experience of the ordinary people may be a 'truer' reflection of the society in the history, as opposed to the exciting and heroic stories of the knights and kings. The ordinary has its own unique value, although it is not so easy to appreciate and resonate with what they cared about at the time." I silently agreed and I thought because the value of the ordinary is often "invisible" and "not-so-exciting-to-recount", it is often undervalued and out of sight.

In our modern society, along with our limited attention and mental resources, it is the wisest to place our attention on the more "significant" things and events, rather than spending time on the relatively trivial and mundane. With this mindset, it is great that we can act more efficiently, by attending to the most important and the most "valuable" aspects of the world. But with this focused and "filtered" mindset, we are also vulnerable to overlook the value of the ordinary, the "not-so-significant" events, and the trivial every day life that occupies a huge portion of our daily experience. A hundred years from now, the part of our experience that does not fit into the category of having "historical significance" may be forgotten and become irrelevant for the future, just as how we may find it difficult to appreciate the mundane life of the average medieval people narrated by Chaucer.