Minor point, but the apology needs to sound sincere and credible, usually by being specific about the mistakes and concise and to the point and not like, say, Bostrom’s defensive apology about the racist email a while back. Otherwise you can instead signal that you are trying to invoke the social API call in a disingenuous way, which can clearly backfire.
Things like “sorry you feel offended” also tend to sound like you’re not actually remorseful for your actions and are just trying to elicit the benefits of an apology. None of the apologies you described sound anything like that, but it’s a common failure state among the less emotionally mature and the syncophantic.
The “standard format” for calling the apology API has three pieces:
“I’m sorry”/”I apologize”
Explicitly state the mistake/misdeed
Explicitly state either what you should have done instead, or will do differently next time
Notably, the second and third bullet points are both costly signals: it’s easier for someone to state the mistake/misdeed, and what they’ll would/will do differently, if they have actually updated. Thus, those two parts contribute heavily to the apology sounding sincere.
Minor point, but the apology needs to sound sincere and credible, usually by being specific about the mistakes and concise and to the point and not like, say, Bostrom’s defensive apology about the racist email a while back. Otherwise you can instead signal that you are trying to invoke the social API call in a disingenuous way, which can clearly backfire.
Things like “sorry you feel offended” also tend to sound like you’re not actually remorseful for your actions and are just trying to elicit the benefits of an apology. None of the apologies you described sound anything like that, but it’s a common failure state among the less emotionally mature and the syncophantic.
Expanding on this...
The “standard format” for calling the apology API has three pieces:
“I’m sorry”/”I apologize”
Explicitly state the mistake/misdeed
Explicitly state either what you should have done instead, or will do differently next time
Notably, the second and third bullet points are both costly signals: it’s easier for someone to state the mistake/misdeed, and what they’ll would/will do differently, if they have actually updated. Thus, those two parts contribute heavily to the apology sounding sincere.