Will AI make us unlearn good manners? Don't let it happen

We should discourage rude AI prompts and encourage courtesy

- FRANK BARRY

Have you taken the Bloomberg AI-dentity Quiz? I did, and it pegged me as a "cautious optimist.

That seemed about right—but my sense of optimism was tested last week.

No, I wasn't reading If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies. Nor was I trying to determine whether a chatbot would lie, or get something wrong, or reveal its unethical underside. I was just listening to a colleague give me a tutorial on how to use one.

"Don't be polite," he said, as he deleted the word 'please' while editing a command he was giving ChatGPT. "Saying 'please' just wastes its energy and resources. Be direct." Uh-oh, I thought. If people learn to stop using polite language when speaking to a human-like helper, won't they also be less likely to use polite language when speaking to other people?

Courtesy and manners are habits. Once formed, they become second nature. But if using AI also becomes second nature, as the best technology eventually does, will it weaken the small courtesies that are so essential to human relationships?