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Just teach them to say please to Alexa et Al. Much easier and generally better to be polite when you don't need to be, than to be impolite when you're supposed
by Jenk 5y ago
Just teach them to say please to Alexa et Al. Much easier and generally better to be polite when you don't need to be, than to be impolite when you're supposed to be, by mistake.
- asteroidbelt 5y agoNo, it is more important to be able to express emotions in tone and word placement (the same word "please" have a spectre of meanings), and learning to use it is more important than learning to be formally polite. For example, even without tone, there's quite significant difference between: - Give me a pen please. - Can you give me a pen please? - Please give me a pen.
- necovek 5y agoIf you are suggesting to have Amazon Echo react only on polite tone too, that'd probably solve it too.
- asteroidbelt 5y agoOh sure, and it should also electroshock you if you use incorrect tone when you are trying to be polite.
- Jenk 5y agoAll of which you have to teach your kids anyway, and practicing with Alexa means you won't offend people as much whilst getting more practice. Win win.
- asteroidbelt 5y agoNo it’s not because Alexa does not provide feedback. You can teach kids to mechanically pronounce correct words, but that is not hard, even a parrot can to do that. But teaching to express and recognize emotions is much harder and Alexa won’t help with that (may even do worse, although unlikely).
- axaxs 5y agoMost politeness is feigned anyways, it still sounds nicer. In your examples, if all 3 were said in the same, monotonous tone, 2 is much nicer to hear, especially compared to just 'give me a pen', which is how most people order food.
- noduerme 5y agoThis is a terrible idea. Children should never be trained to be "polite" to machines. Nor to treat them like people, nor to take orders from them. Interactions with software are a really bad proxy for teaching kids how to behave around other humans.
- Jenk 5y agoIn the face of the alternative being "it's ok to be a dick sometimes, kids".. no. Say please. You've not presented any kind of argument. "This is a terrible idea" .. why?
- klyrs 5y agoOTOH, this does highlight the "other people's children" barn door in your proposal
- Jenk 5y agoDoes it? You sure? "Be polite all of the time" has certainly been a lot easier to teach my own kids than "only be polite some of the time, because being polite all of the time is a bad thing" It goes right up there with the philosophy of every thing deserves respect, even the things you don't like.
- klyrs 5y agoYou and I share these values, and that's how I teach my kid (not that we have voice assistants hanging around). What I'm saying here is that you're teaching your values, but your values aren't universal. Other parents will teach their values, or simply set examples of behaviors that you disagree with. You can't simply solve the problem by teaching your kids. And if my experience is at all typical, your kid will also pick up values from those other people's kids.
- Jenk 5y agoAh, noted and agreed.