English conversation lesson on Notification flood
- B: Notification flood is a difficult problem to be solved, and we don’t know the solution just right now. People get too many notifications every day. Maybe AI could help us.
- A: AI is a useful tool that could be used for many things, but if the person sets their notifications to silent, there’s no way you can do. We could give permission to flash notifications across the screen, even though it’s annoying, it’s effective.
- B: So I think the AI should understand our situation. For example, I am working and I’m busy writing a document. In such cases, notifications shouldn’t appear. When I finish the document and send it, that’s a nice time to show the notification.
- A: It would defeat the purpose of flashing the notification on your screen. The purpose is to grabbing someone’s attention when you need it. We need to stop whatever they’re doing and make them attend to that call. Now, if I need you at 10:20 and you finish your work at 10:45 and AI allows the notification to come through then, it might be too late.
- B: I see. So the AI should judge if it is urgent or not.
- A: AI cannot judge if someone’s work is urgent or not. The whole point is to show notifications in a way that will get someone’s attention. But you’re saying that notification would reduce their efficiency because they are distracted. Your solution is good, but it will defeat the purpose of sending a notification. If we have to wait for someone to finish their work before we tell them they need to join a meeting, then what’s the point?
- B: I ss. So we need to express if each notification is urgent or not. If it’s urgent, it should pass through the blocking. If it’s not urgent, it should wait until the target person finishes their current task.
- A: Okay. In that situation, I think you would need to program it at your end.
(DeepL)
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B: The flood of notifications is a difficult problem to solve, and right now we just don’t know how to solve it. People are getting too many notifications every day; maybe AI can help.
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A: AI is a useful tool for many things, but if the person in question silences notifications, there is nothing you can do about it. You can give them permission to flash the notification across the screen, which is annoying but effective.
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B: So I think AI should understand our situation. For example, I am working, and I am engrossed in writing a document. In such a case, the notification should not appear. When I finish writing a document and send it, I think that is a good time to show the notification.
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A: It makes no sense to display a notification on the screen. The purpose is to get someone’s attention when they need it. You need to interrupt whatever you are doing and have them attend to that call. Now, if I need you at 10:20 and you finish work at 10:45 and the AI makes sure you get a notification at that time, it may be too late.
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B: I see. Then we can determine if the AI is urgent or not.
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A: An AI cannot determine if someone’s job is urgent or not. The point is that you can display a notification in a way that will get someone’s attention. But what you are saying is that by displaying a notification, the person is distracted and efficiency is reduced. Your solution is good, but it defeats the purpose of sending notifications. What good is it if you have to wait for someone to finish their work before you can tell them that they need to join the meeting?
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B: Right. So each notice needs to express whether it is urgent or not. If it is urgent, it should go through blocking. If it is not urgent, we should wait until the subject finishes the current task.
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A: Okay, in such a case, it would require programming on your part.
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B: Or we can use system to flag some emails as urgent.
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A: I see, but many people set the urgent flag for every email.
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B: I heard about an interesting idea. The sender of notifications should pay for it, and this is a kind of auction. The person who paid the most get the best priority of showing the notification. It’s a kind of adjustment using the market mechanism. This mechanism can solve the problem of spam mail because spammers can’t pay so much money.
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A: That is a very radical idea.
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B: The sender should pay for getting attention. You may think it’s ridiculous, but in some situations, it will work for solving the flood of notifications. The flood of notifications is caused by people who can send notifications for free, so they easily send a lot of notifications.
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A: It is a kind of thought experiment. I think there’s a good intersection of economics and IT in this situation because once the element of payment is introduced, people will try to spend efficient the resources, and they are not going to misuse it. There will definitely be a shift in the activity. Unless the demand for those notifications is inelastic in that situation.
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B: What does “Inelastic” mean?
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A: Inelastic means the demand for notifications does not react to the price of those notifications, no matter what. In that situation, we’ll say the demand is inelastic.
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B: Ah, “not elastic”, I got it.
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A: Yes, not elastic. It doesn’t respond to the movement of prices. So whether the price goes up or goes down, it’s still the same. In economics, we say it is inelastic.
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B: I think, when some people become very busy, the price to get their attention will rise because of market mechanisms. And if the price is visualized, we can see the price before we send the message. We can understand if the person is currently busy. Sometimes we can ask it to other people, so the burden of notifications becomes flat.
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A: You want equalize the burden.
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B: Equalize, that’s what I wanted to say.
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A: That could also work. Where did you hear of this idea?
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B: My friend wrote it on Twitter.
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B: Or you could use the system to flag some emails as urgent.
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A: Okay, but many people flag every email as urgent.
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B: I heard an interesting idea. The sender of the notification should pay, this is a kind of auction. The person who pays the most can get the highest priority for notifications. It is a kind of coordination using the market principle. Spammers can’t pay a lot of money, so this mechanism can solve the spam mail problem.
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A: That is a very radical idea.
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B: To get attention, the sender should pay. This may sound silly, but in some situations it may work to solve the flood of notifications. The flood of notifications is caused by people who can easily send many notifications for free.
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A: It’s a kind of thought experiment. I think the situation is a good intersection of economics and IT, because when the element of payment is introduced, people will try to use resources more efficiently and not abuse them. There is no doubt that there will be a change in activity. Unless the demand for that notice is inelastic in that situation.
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B: What do you mean by “inelastic”?
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A: Inelastic means that the demand for a notice is not responsive to the price of that notice, no matter what. In such a situation, you would say that the demand is inelastic.
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B: Yeah, “not resilient”, okay.
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A: Yes, it is not inelastic. It does not react to price movements. So whether prices go up or down, they stay the same. In economics, we say it is inelastic.
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B: I think, when a person gets very busy, the market mechanism will raise the price to get his/her attention. And if that price is visualized, you can check the price before sending the message. You can also see if that person is busy right now. Sometimes you can even ask someone else to do so, thus flattening the burden of notification.
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A: You want to level the burden.
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B: Equalization, that’s what I meant.
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A: That might be a good idea. Where did you hear this idea?
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B: A friend wrote on Twitter.
This page is auto-translated from [/nishio/Notification flood 2023-05-02](https://scrapbox.io/nishio/Notification flood 2023-05-02) using DeepL. If you looks something interesting but the auto-translated English is not good enough to understand it, feel free to let me know at @nishio_en. I’m very happy to spread my thought to non-Japanese readers.