Someone once shared a trick with me: if you’re not a great cook but want to sell food, your best bet is to make it spicy. Spiciness is often used as a trick to cover up culinary shortcomings.
Let’s call this spicy sleight.
Before we move on, it’s worth pointing out that this phenomenon is probably applicable to the subset of the world’s population who doesn’t own a golden-tastebuds — those who mostly eat to live, not live to eat, people with less “developed” taste-and-texture sensitivity and sensibility who are less likely to make gourmet-comment of any overpowering aspect of the dish.
Interestingly, this “hack” can’t be applied to saltiness, sweetness, or sourness. If something is too sweet, people will say it’s too sweet. If it’s too sour, they’ll say it’s too sour. But if it’s too spicy, people are less likely to say it’s too spicy. Instead, they are more likely to say, “I can’t handle it.” Spiciness is also often an adjustable aspect of a dish. What is it about bold spiciness of a meal experience that’s different from the other taste profiles?
And more interestingly, what are similar hacks in other domains? What spicy sleights are there in software? In business? In healthcare? In relationships?
Enter GPT-4o
The following is GPT-4o’s response to my musings:
That’s a very interesting way of looking at the concept of “spiciness” as a tool to cover up deficiencies. This idea can indeed be applied to various domains. Here are some analogous concepts:
Software Development: Feature Overload to Hide Core Functionality Issues:
Hack: Adding numerous features and frequent updates to a product in order to shift focus away from any shortcomings in the core functionality or user-friendliness.
Why It Works: Users might be distracted by the constant stream of new features and perceive the software as cutting-edge, overlooking any persistent underlying issues.
Healthcare: Advanced Technology and Fancy Infrastructure to Distract from Average Care:
- Hack: Utilizing the latest medical technology, beautiful hospital infrastructure, or having robots and automation to create a perception of superior healthcare.
- Why It Works: Patients and their families might be more impressed by the high-tech and aesthetic aspects of a hospital, potentially overshadowing average patient care quality or less direct interaction with healthcare professionals.
Business Management: Buzzwords to Mask Lack of Concrete Strategy:
- Hack: Using a lot of current business buzzwords, trendy terms, and jargon in presentations to create an aura of competence and modernity.
- Why It Works: Audiences, like stakeholders or employees, might be less likely to critique the actual content or strategy if it’s wrapped in trendy and complex language that makes it sound innovative and cutting-edge.
Marketing: Flashy Design to Conceal Mediocre Product Quality:
- Hack: Investing heavily in eye-catching packaging, celebrity endorsements, and trendy advertising campaigns to distract from the product’s average performance.
- Why It Works: Consumers may be drawn to the brand and image more than critically assessing the product’s functionality or quality, thus allowing the product to sell despite its deficiencies.
Education: Engaging What-Might-Be-Hollow Content with Entertainment:
Hack: Making lessons extremely fun or engaging with games, multimedia, and hands-on activities to divert attention from the lack of robust educational content.
Why It Works: The engaging nature keeps students interested, even if the underlying material is not fully developed or in-depth. Students may be less critical of the content depth if they’re having fun.
Finance: High Returns to Mask Poor Long-Term Stability:
Hack: Promoting and focusing on high short-term returns to attract investors, glossing over the long-term stability or risks of the investment.
Why It Works: Investors might be so enticed by the immediate high returns that they overlook potential warning signs or inherent risks in the long term. Short-term gains can overshadow deeper, structural issues.
In essence, the “spicy sleight” across domains involves amplifying a component that can generate strong responses (interest, excitement, perceived innovativeness) to mitigate more critical assessments of fundamental flaws. This tactic requires a balance, as over-reliance can also lead to scrutiny once the initial “spiciness” effect wears off.
I have not been shy in scrutinising and pointing out the less-“intelligent” sides of LLMs, but the line of reasoning in this answer is better than I expected. It’s coherent, articulate, and convincing. It’s amazing what statistics and symbols-remixing can achieve[1].
Even beyond what our ability to make meaning out of slightly probable patterns can provide.
