Should You Be Polite to Chatbots? Research Says Yes. Sam Altman Says It Costs Millions in “Wasted” Computing Power

How polite are you when you ask ChatGPT a query? According to Sam Altman, the human propensity to be nice when asking technology for solutions is “wasting millions of dollars of computing power.” Some experts aren’t so sure. One suggested that being kind “helps generate respectful, collaborative outputs,” while another noted that “when it clocks politeness, it’s more likely to be polite back.” There is plenty of social research that does show this to be the case in social media interactions between humans. When one person engages in polite commentary versus rude commentary, the other person is likely to reflect back that same tone and respect.

Given AI tools are trained on our conversations, it stands to reason that we would want it to be trained to offer politeness and respect to us with every usage … which means offering it the same respect. Or if that’s not convincing enough for you, consider this depressing yet revealing statistic from a recent survey: 12 percent of AI users are being polite to AI specifically “to appease the algorithm in the case of an AI uprising.”

In that doomsday scenario, it’s strangely comforting to think that the AI will take down the assholes first. How’s that for an ROI on kindness?