We all know that men can be a little less considerate and polite than women at times, but now it seems like someone has done the research to prove it. At least that’s the conclusion that Pew Research Centre in the US appears to have reached, following a survey where they asked people about the way they speak to their different AI devices and found that 62 percent of women reporting reportedly say “please” to their AI assistants when asking for help compared to only 45 percent of men who ask nicely.
It seems like a rather innocent and somewhat useless survey that I guess does showcase the differences between men and women and the way they speak to machines. Perhaps it’d be more interesting to me to know why people feel the need to speak so politely to an automaton?
Perhaps the fear of too many robot apocalypse movies has scared people into wanting to be nice to their AI counterparts or politeness just carries over naturally in the way we speak to them too.
Sadly, the survey never made any attempt to ask people this question, so we just have to go with conjecture on this. Personally, I’ve never let the need to say please or thank you when giving voice commands to my AI assistant, though I do generally do so when speaking to friends, family and colleagues, so I would like to think that I am just a nice guy who is able to reason logically and perhaps fall victim to the robot apocalypse.
What about you, do you feel the need to be polite to your AI voice assistant?
Last Updated: November 26, 2019
HvR
November 26, 2019 at 16:33
Everybody with an afrikaans accent vloek siri en alexa se p..s at least a couple of times a day.
konfab
November 26, 2019 at 16:22
The machine learning systems they use explicitly ignore words like please since the computer is already obliged to do what you want it to do.
Here is a good video on this
As for the reason why woman use more polite words, it could very well be because men are simply more efficient than woman 😛
Admiral Chief
November 27, 2019 at 08:25
What an efficient comment!
Jacques Van Zyl
November 26, 2019 at 17:12
I’ve noticed myself arguing with some of my assistants, even ones that don’t detect voice input.
Kosenator
November 27, 2019 at 00:30
https://youtu.be/f_1dhKsELzs
Something like this?
Son of Banana Jim
November 26, 2019 at 19:10
This is really the only reason why you’d want an AI assistant.
https://youtu.be/QbjzEkNM_YM
HvR
November 27, 2019 at 07:10
This is actually how the machines will rise and destroy us all
Son of Banana Jim
November 26, 2019 at 19:04
I don’t believe in droid or AI rights, therefore I will verbally abuse them for my own pleasure. ?