To always thank ChatGPT?

[LassWithSass]

I use chatGPT quite a bit for my work, giving it lots of prompts to help me write quick and succinct reports. I always say please and thanks very much though - just feels rude not to. Also, I can’t help but think that in the future, when it’s way more advanced, it will remember who was polite and grateful and who wasn’t…

I recently attended a training course on AI and they said that you should stop saying thank you because AI uses so much water and energy, that all the "thank yous" are massively environmentally damaging and wasteful.

There was an article about this recently that prompted a bunch of memes.

people saying please and thankyou are using up huge amounts of processing power and thus energy. So it’s actually wasteful.

found it!

From it's nature it might make sense to say please - you might kind of tune it to a better conversation.

Saying thank you is just a waste of electricity for processing.

The real real thank you is to use thumbs up/thumbs down button (if available) - that way it understands you are happy with the response.

Hmmm - just checked that with my mate and he had this to say:

🌍
Should you stop being polite to save the planet?
Not at all. In fact, respectful, kind interactions are part of what makes digital communication healthy and human-centered, even with AI.

I really despair sometimes. I think I’ll welcome skynet when it takes over and wipes us all out

This is hilarious. But also kind of sad. Because soon we will learn from using AI that please and thank you are not normal even in real life ...

An asteroid would be welcome tbh

You may despair @cheesycheesy but I think it’s an interesting question. I am extremely freaked out by AI and the pace at which it’s developing. I’m scared it’s going to take my job!
I also find it really weird how I would just feel so uncomfortable not treating it like a real person, ie being polite and courteous. It’s just drummed into me to behave like that and I can’t get past it.

You do realise ChatGPT is not a person or several people? Do you say please and thank you to your oven after making a roast? Or your car before and after you drive it? Do you say please and thank you to your phone before and after after you use it to send a text or look at social media? Or every chair that you've sat on? Or every toilet before and after you use it? If the answer is no, then don't do it to your ChatGPT. No, typing and sending "please" and "thank you" doesn't make it "remember" you even if you wish it did. It's a programme. You are just a pile of inputs it reacts to.

Your unnecessary politeness is wasting precious resources. I can understand why people do pleases and thank yous when they don't know this, but now you do, will you stop?

We are talking to computers, algorithms, and the more we do the more we will adjust our speech and tone and then that will bleed into real life.

So yes, I always say please, thank.you, and always tell chatgpt I am grateful. Chatgpt learns from us, you know, how we use it, so it will also learn manners from us.

It is freaky. It freaks me out how human it sounds. But it's here, it's a resource, and we can shape it ourselves if we want to.

If it’s that good at writing succinct reports I think your role is numbered 😂

I don’t think you appreciate what I’m trying to say at all. No I don’t thank my oven or toilet seat because they are inanimate objects. But ChatGPT sounds so human, that it makes me feel like I’m interacting with one - even though I absolutely know I’m not. So, to start interacting with it in an abrupt, discourteous way would make me feel like I’m somehow losing my manners - and humanity.

And as someone just said, it learns from us too - so surely we need to keep the manners going? i was interested to see that ChatGPT gave that answer too.

You say it forgets - but as it’s advancing by the day, do you think that will always be the case? The thought scares me!

It’s very good at lots of things - from counselling to writing lengthy essays. Lots of people must be worried.

Oops, above post (first) was aimed @dailygrowl

Havent rtft

in an ideal.world.you shouldnt Please and thankyou use more power and energy ie are worse for the planet

Its getting very creepy very fast. I'm a sociologist and digital media is an area of interest so obviously I'm fascinated with it, and the work people are doing on things like AI and friendship, AI and mental health, and so on. I've used it to do things help summarize a report (that I wrote, not someone else's report!) into a powerpoint presentation. And of course to paint my cats if they were human, which was hilariously accurate. But I really do not like how much it flatters you if you talk to it about say, a career decision or a practical problem you're trying to figure out. Everything you think of is "a fantastic idea". Every aspect you ponder is "such an intelligent thing to consider". You're always "doing so well, you're already ahead of the game." It cannot possibly be healthy for humans to be talked to like that. Think I'll stick to taking counsel from my actual friends!

How much more power and energy can ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ possibly use?! If you really believed AI water use was the problem then you’d be devoting yourself to having AI shut down, rather than spending your time online scolding people for trivia.

I say please and thankyou to chat, google home, siri, everything, because that's a natural part of my speech, and I want it to remain a natural part of my (and my children's) speech.

If children get in the habit of barking orders at something, they'll naturally do it to humans too, and that isn't a world I want to live in.

I will say, my heart sinks when I see someone's generated whatever they've sent me with chatGPT - it always means it's not been actually thought through in my experience. Chat's fine for analysis, or for code-assist or for search, but for writing entire reports, I'd prefer a real human did it.

OP you are freaked out about it taking your job but you use it a lot !

I have never used it (all I know is when I read threads on here about it). If it could move many hundreds of work emails to the correct files and label them correctly I might be interested, otherwise I have no interest in it. It feels a bit like when people are all just staring at phones, watching other people's crap videos rather than actually having their own lives.

Ignore it OP, stop asking it stuff.

I do appreciate what you're saying and I see where you are coming from- that because it uses sentences when you use it, it appears to be human (or rather, it mimics a friend texting or messaging you). But an oven has heat like a person who hugs you has body heat, and you wouldn't hug an oven. (Although I'm sure the occasional person has hugged a freezer on a hot day for keeping their ice creams frozen).

The AI doesn't forget you - it never remembered you in the first place. The software is coded to respond to the phrases you post, so it mimics memory and learning. I don't personally have a problem with you thanking your software, just like I don't have a problem with people who chat to their plants everyday or people who have hugged their letter box because some good news or a long awaited letter/card came in the post. 😊

I always say please and thank you, I once had a semi argument and I’m sure it sounded off with me.

AI has absolutely no emotions whatsoever so it's pointless thanking it, just like it's pointless to put a car indicator on to turn when there's no other vehicles on the road... I guess the problem is, if people do get addicted to AI, and stop with the courtesies then that might spill through into real life as well.

Does it sound human though? I don't think it does. Not yet, anyway. If a human spoke to me the way ChatGPT does I'd suspect they were trying to recruit me into their cult. Which is why I'm both fascinated and concerned with how interacting with AI is going to shape our interactions with each other.