Communicating with humans vs computers

Communicating with humans is one of the most complicated, discouraging, enigmatic processes I have ever endeavored to undertake. I speak English far better than I speak, write or code any computer programming language. Yet, I think communicating with a human is far harder than communicating with any computer.

With a computer, I am required to say exactly what I mean. With a human, not only am I discouraged from or frowned upon for saying exactly what I mean, even if I do say exactly what I mean in the best way possible, how they receive my message is completely out of my hands and they may interpret some meaning other than the meaning of the words which I said, due to some awkward tone or body posture, signal, or movement, or some other environmental or delivery factor which I cannot properly control and do not properly understand. And, even if I were to somehow have the capacity to use perfect tone and body language, with perfect non-verbal communication in every way, they can still interpret my message any way they see fit based on how they feel, how they perceive the world, what they think I’m trying to get or do, whether or not they like me, past experiences they’ve had with me OR with others, how they were raised, and all sorts of environmental and upbringing or cultural factors which are only in their life, and not mine.

In other words, once you deliver a message, how it is received is completely out of your hands. This is not so with computers. Humans are harder than computers. That’s why I’m a computer programmer and engineer. It involves a realm of understanding between the two of us which I have a chance to understand and control.

Unfortunately, my peers, friends, family, and extended family are all humans, so here I am again right back at square one.

My personal thoughts on communicating with humans vs computers, written a few months ago; published just now.