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Why you should be polite to AI (youtube.com)

submitted 6 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I know the title will trigger people but it's a short so please briefly hear her out. I've since given this a try and it's incredibly cool. It's a very different experience and provides much better information AFAICT

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I'm not sure that checks out. I mean, fair, I do think that someone being habitually cruel toward AI might not be the greatest indicator of their disposition in general, though I'd hesitate to make a hasty judgement on that. But if we take AI's presentation as a person as fictional, does that extend to other fictional contexts? Would you consider an evil play-through in a video game to indicate an issue? Playing a hostile character in a roleplay setting? Writing horror fiction?

It seems to me that there are many contexts where exhibiting or creating simulated behavior in a fictional environment isn't really equivalent to doing so with genuine individuals in non-imaginary circumstances. AI isn't quite the same as a fictional setting, but it's potentially closer to that than it is to dealing with a real person.

By the same token, if not being polite to an AI is problematic, is it equally problematic to repeatedly say things like "human" and "operator" to an automated phone system until you get a response? Both mimic human speech, while neither ostensibly have a legitimate understanding of what's being said by either party.

Where does the line get drawn? Is it wrong to curse at fully inanimate objects that don't even pretend to be people? Is verbally condemning a malfunctioning phone, refrigerator, or toaster equivalent to berating a hallucinating AI?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

evil play-through in a video game

This reminds me of the case of a parent who let his 6 year old play GTA. It's a notoriously "crime based" game, rated 18+... yet the kid kept progressing by just doing ambulance, firefighter, and police missions. I'd call that quite an indicator of their disposition 😉

AI isn't quite the same as a fictional setting, but it's potentially closer to that than it is to dealing with a real person.

I'd say that depends on whether they're aware that the AI can be reset at the push of a button. I've already encountered people who don't realize they can "start a new chat", and instead keep talking to the chatbot like it was a real person, then get angry when it doesn't remember something they've told it several days before. Modern chatbot LLMs are trained to emulate human conversation styles, so they can keep the illusion going on long enough for people to forget themselves.