Manners Maketh Machine

I recently eavesdropped with interest as my teenage son demanded his smart speaker churn out his latest excruciating playlist. With neither a ‘please’ nor a ‘thank you’ to be heard, the subservient AI meekly complied with his every demand.

My parental instincts kicked in. I intervened. 

“Where are your Ps and Qs?”

“Dad, it’s just a machine. It doesn’t even care”.

Fair point! Wishing I’d never opened my mouth, I mumbled a half-hearted response along the lines of “We brought you up to display basic manners, better to stay in the habit, etc.” He wasn’t listening. 

But it did make me think. Should children be well-mannered when interacting with an Artificial Intelligence? Does it really matter? Is there (yet another) Draconian parental setting I can flick to enforce at least some basic levels of manners?  Or am I just being old-fashioned? (My daughter recently informed me that using WhatsApp was old-fashioned – that stung!)

It turns out I’m not alone with my musings. This interesting article suggests that ChatBots’ responses really can adapt to your level of politeness. 

https://www.techradar.com/computing/artificial-intelligence/i-stopped-saying-thanks-to-chatgpt-heres-what-happened

Just the evidence I needed!

Everyone in my household now makes use of AI voice assistants. In fact, the extent to which AI in one form or another may pervade all of our lives is actually quite impressive. A good indicator of this can be seen in the growth of AI-patents across a huge range of fields. Please take a look at our annual report here for a succinct overview:

https://www.marks-clerk.com/expertise/sectors/digital-transformation/artificial-intelligence/

In any case, my son’s manners are the least of my worries. His taste in music is much more of a concern. And thank you for taking the time to read this.