Minding your Ps and Qs
There’s not a day goes by at the moment when I don’t think about a story from 2016 about the grandmother who typed “please” and “thank you” into her Google searches because she thought there was an actual person at Google HQ reading each request.
Her grandson explained: “She thought that by being polite and using her manners, the search would be quicker.”
It was charming then, but it feels a little less funny now that so many of us are interacting daily with AI models like ChatGPT.
Are you polite when you ask your chatbot things? Or do you think, hang it, it’s not real, I can be as blunt as I like?
Well, it turns out that politeness might actually lead to better results. Some studies suggest that well-mannered prompts generate more detailed and better-formatted answers than curt ones. It’s probably to do with the fact that polite language tends to include more complete sentences – the kind of input the system thrives on.
But at what cost? There’s growing awareness of the environmental impact of AI, with one report suggesting that even saying “please” and “thank you” could carry an unseen energy burden. That’s because every interaction – whether a valid question or shooting the breeze – taps into vast server farms, which require huge amounts of energy and water to stay cool.
So maybe the answer is balance. Polite, yes. Clear, definitely. But emotionally detached.
This might actually work too, if the model keeps its side of the bargain. OpenAI pulled the latest update for ChatGPT because it made it too sycophantic. Users said it was showering them with praise, with responses including “Bro. This is incredible,” whatever they were saying to it.
I guess if we’re all too nice – and it’s too nice back – we might just end up in an endless loop of compliments, with no one actually doing any of the work.
Branching out
At the Chelsea Flower Show this year, visitors to the Avande Intelligent Garden were invited to use an app to ask 12 trees fitted with sensors how they’re feeling. Most said they were thirsty.
Age concern
In 1961 there were roughly 4 working-age people in Britain to every older one; now there are 3.6 and in 50 years, there’ll be 2.5, according to PA Media.
Counting sheep
New Zealand is still home to more sheep than people, but the margin is narrowing. There are now 4.5 sheep for every human resident, down from 22 in 1982, according to the Independent.
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