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This post makes me feel weird. Because I don't want to be forced to put on niceties for an inanimate object. I want to order my device around. Not as a power tr

This post makes me feel weird. Because I don't want to be forced to put on niceties for an inanimate object. I want to order my device around. Not as a power trip, but simply because it's a device, whose function is to complete commands. I'm sympathetic to your points on why that's a bad vibe and might not be great when the line is blurred, but... I don't know. It seem strange to afford rights, if only conversational/social rights, to an object.

tobr 5y ago
I think it’s more out of respect for other people than for the bot itself. If your bot is given a feminine name and voice, and accepts being called various sexist slurs, then it becomes a rather offensive depiction of women.
- eximius 5y ago
  That's a related but somewhat different point. 1. I don't want to feel bad for giving commands to my machine. For avoiding niceties. This is not talking about slurs, etc, but not saying 'please' or some such. 2. I agree it would be nice to avoid negativd depictions of groups. Feminine bots accepting abuse isn't great. I guess the balance for me is kind of like what they person I was replying to said: don't make it a person. I know I'm not cruel, but it is strange to think you'd want to develop it to refuse commands if you're mean or something. I don't want that.
  - farisjarrah 5y ago
    I have an example of what you may be trying to illustrate: the two types of AI in Star Trek. 1 being the ship. Crew members happily bark at it with no manners. But then there are things like Data and holodeck programs where crew members will interact with them like real humans. Maybe there is some middle ground for both types of robots?
  - tobr 5y ago
    I agree that you shouldn’t have to say “please” to set your egg timer or get the weather forecast. It would perhaps be amusing with a bot that refused to do anything unless you were extremely polite, but it wouldn’t be very practical. What’s interesting to me is how this is never a problem with a traditional menu or button based UI. Maybe I’m muttering “f*ck off” as I click “Remind me later” on the umpteenth alert of the day trying to get me to update this or that, but the software would never know. (On the other hand, you could argue that the software is offending me by trying to get me to do something that is mostly in the developer’s interest, and not allowing me to say “No” - this is where being able to be frank using voice input could be quite liberating)
  - ocdtrekkie 5y ago
    I think my concern is that if you talk to a bot in a certain manner, it normalizes talking to humans in that manner, if the bot is "human enough". I wonder if the solution is to stop building bots to emulate humans: Natural language processing is important so humans can make ordinary requests of a computer without having to remember specific syntax. But perhaps we should stop trying to make the computer respond the way a human would, so that people don't view it like a human or personality.

tobr 5y ago

I think it’s more out of respect for other people than for the bot itself. If your bot is given a feminine name and voice, and accepts being called various sexist slurs, then it becomes a rather offensive depiction of women.

eximius 5y ago
That's a related but somewhat different point. 1. I don't want to feel bad for giving commands to my machine. For avoiding niceties. This is not talking about slurs, etc, but not saying 'please' or some such. 2. I agree it would be nice to avoid negativd depictions of groups. Feminine bots accepting abuse isn't great. I guess the balance for me is kind of like what they person I was replying to said: don't make it a person. I know I'm not cruel, but it is strange to think you'd want to develop it to refuse commands if you're mean or something. I don't want that.
- farisjarrah 5y ago
  I have an example of what you may be trying to illustrate: the two types of AI in Star Trek. 1 being the ship. Crew members happily bark at it with no manners. But then there are things like Data and holodeck programs where crew members will interact with them like real humans. Maybe there is some middle ground for both types of robots?
- tobr 5y ago
  I agree that you shouldn’t have to say “please” to set your egg timer or get the weather forecast. It would perhaps be amusing with a bot that refused to do anything unless you were extremely polite, but it wouldn’t be very practical. What’s interesting to me is how this is never a problem with a traditional menu or button based UI. Maybe I’m muttering “f*ck off” as I click “Remind me later” on the umpteenth alert of the day trying to get me to update this or that, but the software would never know. (On the other hand, you could argue that the software is offending me by trying to get me to do something that is mostly in the developer’s interest, and not allowing me to say “No” - this is where being able to be frank using voice input could be quite liberating)
- ocdtrekkie 5y ago
  I think my concern is that if you talk to a bot in a certain manner, it normalizes talking to humans in that manner, if the bot is "human enough". I wonder if the solution is to stop building bots to emulate humans: Natural language processing is important so humans can make ordinary requests of a computer without having to remember specific syntax. But perhaps we should stop trying to make the computer respond the way a human would, so that people don't view it like a human or personality.