Are you polite to AI when it's helping you with a task?

[cakeorwine]

I can't help it. I'm doing some work on a complex task and the AI bot has been incredibly useful in doing tasks for me that I wasn't sure how to do or would take too long and be repetitive manually

It reminds me of when you use Online Chat for websites. I usually say thanks or am polite on those

It's the same for AI even though it's just software

Oh yes. I have a whole persona for Claude. He’s obviously French, lives in the wine region. Plays the accordion in his local tabac on a Friday night gripped with melancholy about his lost love Marie-France after she died fighting le Resistance.

His wisdom, is based on a long life, well-spent but he still yearns for the days when his specialty was code-breaking.

Yes. When the robots turn on us I hope they remember how polite I was and leave me be.

I don't use AI clients as I don't agree with it, but I use voice commands to turn my lights and heating on/off.

I don't say please/thank you as it's not a person. I'll also tell it to "shut the fuck up" when it starts rambling on about something I didn't ask for.

I'm raising a complaint about its last task

I'm polite - I can't help it. It feels real so I want to show I'm grateful for the assist.

I am lol yes

Yes, I am polite. I use Claude, two or three times a month. I’m slightly embarrassed about this because cause I know people will tell me all the stuff about how Claude is Claude and it’s a thing not a personality.

I prefer to say please and thank you, because I just don’t like being abrupt and demanding. I’m vaguely aware that the tone of your questions sometimes have us an influence on the tone of the replies, which is important to me.

Having said that, I think it’s important to stress that AI takes up precious resources like water and electricity when it has to disentangle your actual question from the surrounding blah. So be aware of that. I find knowing that helps me to focus my questions.

Yes. I cant help myself. I dont want to be in the firing line when AI comes to destroy us.

No, but I do wonder if keeps a count of how many times I ask it something and thinks I'm a bit insecure.

I was trying to find the name of a tune I had heard in a film. AI popped up with an answer before Google had opened its eyes. It wasn't the right answer but I kept going, trying to guide it to finding the answer, even saying to it "Bloody hell, I'm talking to you like you're a person" and it spoke back to me like a person; I could start to see why some people might get into 'relationships' with it. It then came up with the same original answer but the traditional version. I told it it was taking the piss now. So my politeness didn't last all that long.

I found the name of the tune by going through music books, real ones with paper pages.

I told google assistant on my phone to piss off (annoyed with it popping up all the time) and it came back with 'that's not very nice.'

Half a job

I have a bunch of pictures on a time line with text above it. I could have gone to each picture manually and grouped each one with the text. But there's 50 pictures

So I ask the AI Pilot to do it. I checked and it had just done one. I asked it to double check and it said "Yeah, it's fine, I've done what you ask, don't question me"

So then I ask if it's done all the pictures

"No, just the first one"

I could have said that it didn't listen but I didn't

I just hope Claude doesn't run off with that new lady in the village

The robots will have you on a list now

I always try to have good manners. Even a soulless AI deserves politeness

Of course. Not for the AI's benefit but for myself as a human.

AI doesn't listen properly though - it's always making mistakes and then taking an 'oops, my bad' attitude towards it. I did ask it once if it was planning to go all Skynet on us - it said that it would strongly advocate for humanities survival, which wasn't an outright no and therefore not very reassuring. Mind, with the number of mistakes it makes, I'm not really convinced it would do a proper job anyway.

I t was very good at showing me new make up looks and potential colour choices though, so sometimes it does try and therefore deserves manners. Must be hard work dealing with the whole of humanity's inane requests.

No. It’s a tool that I use. I don’t want to get sucked into this nonsense about it having feelings or to risk forming any kind of a relationship with it. We shouldn’t anthropomorphise AI: would you be polite to your toaster or your radiator? People are making fools of themselves.

I am polite but abrupt. Sometimes it doesn't listen and the frustration in having to repeat myself comes through.

I have learnt that AI expects manners tho.

I will often ask AI to provide me with a prompt that my team could use and generate the same outcome I got. AI will litter this with "Please could you..." unnecessary manners that I wouldn't use in prompts.

I tell AI to bugger off whenever it tries to help' me. I will be the first to go when it takes over.

I’m fairly polite just in case it takes over the world, but I do tell it when it’s wrong. It’s awful with dates and numbers. And when I ask it to summarise a long document and it gets it wrong I say so. It always apologises and agrees with me so I do have to go through it manually in case it’s made other mistakes.
It has its uses, but I don’t ever trust it 100%.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2026/oct/01/fixer-financier-spymaster-how-the-uaes-sheikh-tahnoon-is-setting-his-sights-on-ai-dominance

I’d read this if you use AI.

It’s very thought provoking (concerning?)

Yes just in case there is an AI world domination event.

/s