Be nice to ChatGPT (or your chatbot of choice) not because of funny memes about it remembering you when it takes over the world...
...but because it helps you practice being a better human.
I've had friends get mad at me for saying "please" and "thank you" to ChatGPT for whatever reasons, but to me this really is an opportunity to build positive habits and "muscle memory" when it comes down to being a decent human being.
And beyond the pleasing and thanking and whatnot, how many chances do you get in the "real world" to practice little things that make such a big difference, such as giving praise and constructive feedback, providing encouragement, and being able to clarify and refine instructions to get on the same page with whomever (or whatever) you're interacting with?
Or, at a minimum, learning how not to be an abrasive a-hole to entities outside of yourself (with humans of course being at the top of that list to make right with)?
Part of learning includes doing. We don't get many opportunities to "practice" being a good human, or at least "good" to the extent we are at a minimum attempting to contribute to society when given the chance.
So if we now have a technology that does allow us to practice, in a safe space and free of judgment, how to better interact with our fellow humans, why would we attempt to stigmatize or demonize that?
I mean, think back at difficult conversations you've had to have in your life - how much better off would you have been if you had the ability to practice them from *all* sides of an issue or argument before actually having the IRL human conversation?
At a minimum, walking through the possibilities of future conversations has a priming effect, effectively warming up the right parts of the brain so that they're activated in anticipation.
And in a world where we have less and less time to think as more and more information comes into our systems, how much cognitive space could we free up by not having to think about whether we're talking to a human or AI when we ask for things nicely, say thank you and recognize the effort made, give clear instructions, or in general put thoughts to words?
Are we simply avoiding potentially uncomfortable truths about ourselves? Or do we feel that this is "beneath" us? Or is the novelty of anthropomorphizing a technology, or at least using the technology as a stand-in for humans, still too strange for us to be comfortable with the concept?
What are the barriers to using AI as a tool for practicing better human interactions and helping us achieve deeper and more constructive relationships with each other?
So yeah, the memes going around about being nice to AI for the purpose of avoiding various dystopian / apocalyptic outcomes (or personal retribution) are for sure funny, but what if we're nice to AI just because and we end up better for it?
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