4 ms·

Personally I think people should generally be polite and respectful towards the models. Not because they have feelings, but because cruelty degrades those who p

Personally I think people should generally be polite and respectful towards the models. Not because they have feelings, but because cruelty degrades those who practice it.

w0m 1y ago
ding ding ding. If you're rude to an LLM, those habits will bleed into your conversations with barista/etc.
- Cthulhu_ 1y ago
  Not necessarily, people will change behaviour based on context. Chat vs email vs HN comments, for example.
  - macNchz 1y ago
    I think people in general are not all that great at doing this. Anecdotal, but I grew up in a small town in rural New England, a few hours from NYC and popular with weekenders and second-home owners from there. I don’t think that people from NYC are inherently rude, but there’s a turbulence to life in NYC to where jockeying for position is somewhat of a necessity. It was, however, transparently obvious in my hometown that people from the city were unable to turn it off when they arrived. Ostensibly they had some interest in the slow-paced, pastoral village life, but they were readily identifiable as the only people being outwardly pushy and aggressive in daily interactions. I’ve lived in NYC for some time now, and I recognize the other side of this, and feel it stemmed less from inherent traits and more from an inability to context switch behavior.
- monktastic1 1y ago
  I think it depends on the self-awareness of the user. It's easy to slip into the mode of conflating an LLM with a conscious being, but with enough metacognition one can keep them separate. Then, in the same way that walking on concrete doesn't make me more willing to walk on a living creature, neither does my way of speaking to an LLM bleed into human interactions. That said, I often still enjoy practicing kindness with LLMs, especially when I get frustrated with them.
- verisimi 1y ago
  ... cos, I mean, what's the difference between ai and a barista? Both are basically inanimate emotion-free zones, right?
  - w0m 1y ago
    I wish in modern society i could assume the /s here.
- satisfice 1y ago
  Possibly. But that’s not the fault of any person except he who forced a fake social actor into our midst. It’s wrong to build fake humans and then demand they be treated as real.
- kevinpacheco 1y ago
  It seems like by default, the LLMs I've used tend to come across as eager to ask follow-up questions along the lines of "what do you think, x or y?" or "how else can I help you with this?" I'm going to have to start including instructions not to do that to avoid getting into a ghosting habit that might affect my behavior with real people.
Cthulhu_ 1y ago
Where do you draw the line though? I know some people that ask Google proper questions like "how do I match open tagx except XHTML self-contained tags using RegEx?" whereas I just go "html regex". Some people may even add "please" and "thank you" to that. I doubt anyone is polite in a terminal, also because it's a syntax error. So the question is also, do you consider it a conversation, or a terminal?
PorterBHall 1y ago
I agree! I try to remember to prompt as if I were writing to a colleague because I fear that if I get in the habit of treating them like a servant, it will degrade my tone in communicating with other humans over time.
ToucanLoucan 1y ago
Agreed. I caught some shit from some friends of mine when I got mildly annoyed that they were saying offensive things to my smart speakers, and yeah on the one hand it's silly, but at the same time... I dunno man, I don't like how quickly you turned into a real creepy bastard to a feminine voice when you felt you had social permission to. That's real weird.
disambiguation 1y ago
You're nice to AI for your own well being. I'm nice to AI so they spare me when they eventually become our overlords. We are not the same.
- raducu 1y ago
  > You're nice to AI for your own well being. I'm nice to AI so they spare me when they eventually become our overlords. Ahh, the full spectrum of human motivation -- niceness for the sake of it, fear and let me add my machiavellianism -- I think being polite in your query produces better results.
lupusreal 1y ago
Yes, if you're communicating with a human language it pays off to reinforce, not undermine, good habits of communication.
brap 1y ago
When coding with LLMs, they always make these dumb fucking mistakes, or they don't listen to your instructions, or they start changing things you didn't ask it to... it's very easy to slip and become gradually more rude until the conversation completely derails. I find that forcing myself to be polite helps me keep my sanity and keep the conversation productive.
satisfice 1y ago
The study is not about cruelty, but rather politeness. Impoliteness is not anything like cruelty. Meanwhile, there is no such thing as cruelty toward a machine. That’s a meaningless concept. When I throw a rock at a boulder to break it, am I being cruel to that rock? When I throw away an old calculator, is that cruelty? What nonsense. I do think it is at the very least insulting and probably cruel and abusive to build machines that assume an unearned, unauthorized standing the social order. There is no moral basis for that. It’s essentially theft of a solely human privilege, that can only legitimately be asserted by a human on his own behalf or on behalf of another human. You don’t get to insist that I show deference and tenderness toward some collection of symbols that you put in a particular order
Al-Khwarizmi 1y ago
Yes. I tend to be polite to LLMs. I admit that part of the reason is that I'm not 100% sure they're not conscious, or a future version could become so. But the main reason is what you say. Being polite in a conversation just feels like the right thing to me. It's the same reason why I tend to be good to RPG NPCs, except if I'm purposefully role playing an evil character. But then it's not me doing the conversation, it's the character. When I'm identifying with the character, I'll always pick the polite option and feel bad if I mistreat an NPC, even if there's obviously no consciousness involved.
- zmgsabst 1y ago
  I think we can look at examples: People who are respectful of carved rocks, eg temple statues, tend to be generally respectful and disciplined people. You become how you act.
- apercu 1y ago
  That simply means you were raised right. :)
Freak_NL 1y ago
Computers exist to serve. Anthropomorphising them or their software programming is harmful¹. The tone of voice an officer would use to order a private or ranking to do something seems suitable — which obviously comes down to terse, clear, unambiguous queries and commands. Besides, humans can switch contexts easily. I don't talk to my wife in the same way I do to a colleague, and I don't talk to a colleague like I would to a stranger, and that too depends on context (is it a friendly, neutral, or hostile encounter?). 1: At this point. I mean, we haven't even reached Kryten-level of computer awareness and intelligence yet, let alone Data.
- lupusreal 1y ago
  > tone of voice an officer would use to order a private Most people probably don't have the mental aptitude to be in that sort of position without doing some damage to their own psyche. Generally speaking, power corrupts. Militaries have generally come up with methods of weeding people out but it's still a problem. I think even if it's just people barking orders at machines, it has the potential to become a social problem for at least some people. As for anthropomorphising being bad, it's too late. That ship sailed for sure as soon as we started conversing with machines in human languages. Humans already have an innate tendency to anthropomorphize, even inanimate objects like funny shaped boulders that kind of look like a person if you squint at it from an angle. And have you seen how people treat dogs? Dogs don't even talk. Maybe it's harmful, but there's no stopping it.
- raducu 1y ago
  > Anthropomorphising them or their software programming is harmful¹. LLMs are trained on internet data produced by humans. Humans tend to appreciate politeness and go to greater lengths answering polite questions, hence the LLMs will also mimic that behavior because that's what they're trained on.
1970-01-01 1y ago
Saying thank you to a plant for growing you a fruit is strange behavior. Saying thank you to a LLM for growing you foobar is also strange behavior. Not doing either is not degrading behavior of the grower.
- mkmk3 1y ago
  Disagree wrt practicing gratitude towards resources consumed and tools utilized. Maybe it doesn't degrade you if you don't but I think it gives a bit more perspective
  - 1970-01-01 1y ago
    I think we agree on this if you agree that practicing gratitude in life and directly practicing it on non-sentient objects are not the same thing. Going to church to pray, going to therapy, practicing mindfulness, etc. isn't the same thing as seeing each grape growing on a vine as an anthropomorphic object. Don't anthropomorphize your lawnmower.
    - blittle 1y ago
      You also don't communicate with human language to your lawnmower to get it to work.
      - 1970-01-01 1y ago
        Actually..you do. https://www.agrieuro.co.uk/robot-lawn-mowers-manageable-with-alexa-c-59-k-1688_1.html https://www.agrieuro.co.uk/robot-lawn-mowers-manageable-with...
- lupusreal 1y ago
  Many hunters say thank you to animals they just killed. Strange, or respectful. Depends on your perspective and cultural context. LLMs are bound to change society in ways that seem strange to people stuck in outdated contexts.
- 1y ago
specialist 1y ago
Agreed. When asked if they observed etiquette, even when alone, Miss Manners replied (from memory): "We practice good manners in private to be well mannered in public." Made quite the impression on young me. A bit like the cliché: "A person's morals are how they behave when they think no one is watching."
wyclif 1y ago
A lot of wisdom and virtue in this comment; I appreciate that.
- swat535 1y ago
  Reminds of the elderly woman adding "please" to her queries in Google: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/16/grandmother-nan-google-praises-search-thank-you-manners-polite https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/16/grandmother-...
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

Personally I think people should generally be polite and respectful towards the models. Not because they have feelings, but because cruelty degrades those who practice it.

w0m 1y ago

ding ding ding. If you're rude to an LLM, those habits will bleed into your conversations with barista/etc.

Cthulhu_ 1y ago
Not necessarily, people will change behaviour based on context. Chat vs email vs HN comments, for example.
- macNchz 1y ago
  I think people in general are not all that great at doing this. Anecdotal, but I grew up in a small town in rural New England, a few hours from NYC and popular with weekenders and second-home owners from there. I don’t think that people from NYC are inherently rude, but there’s a turbulence to life in NYC to where jockeying for position is somewhat of a necessity. It was, however, transparently obvious in my hometown that people from the city were unable to turn it off when they arrived. Ostensibly they had some interest in the slow-paced, pastoral village life, but they were readily identifiable as the only people being outwardly pushy and aggressive in daily interactions. I’ve lived in NYC for some time now, and I recognize the other side of this, and feel it stemmed less from inherent traits and more from an inability to context switch behavior.
monktastic1 1y ago
I think it depends on the self-awareness of the user. It's easy to slip into the mode of conflating an LLM with a conscious being, but with enough metacognition one can keep them separate. Then, in the same way that walking on concrete doesn't make me more willing to walk on a living creature, neither does my way of speaking to an LLM bleed into human interactions. That said, I often still enjoy practicing kindness with LLMs, especially when I get frustrated with them.
verisimi 1y ago
... cos, I mean, what's the difference between ai and a barista? Both are basically inanimate emotion-free zones, right?
- w0m 1y ago
  I wish in modern society i could assume the /s here.
satisfice 1y ago
Possibly. But that’s not the fault of any person except he who forced a fake social actor into our midst. It’s wrong to build fake humans and then demand they be treated as real.
kevinpacheco 1y ago
It seems like by default, the LLMs I've used tend to come across as eager to ask follow-up questions along the lines of "what do you think, x or y?" or "how else can I help you with this?" I'm going to have to start including instructions not to do that to avoid getting into a ghosting habit that might affect my behavior with real people.

Cthulhu_ 1y ago

Where do you draw the line though? I know some people that ask Google proper questions like "how do I match open tagx except XHTML self-contained tags using RegEx?" whereas I just go "html regex". Some people may even add "please" and "thank you" to that. I doubt anyone is polite in a terminal, also because it's a syntax error. So the question is also, do you consider it a conversation, or a terminal?

PorterBHall 1y ago

I agree! I try to remember to prompt as if I were writing to a colleague because I fear that if I get in the habit of treating them like a servant, it will degrade my tone in communicating with other humans over time.

ToucanLoucan 1y ago

Agreed. I caught some shit from some friends of mine when I got mildly annoyed that they were saying offensive things to my smart speakers, and yeah on the one hand it's silly, but at the same time... I dunno man, I don't like how quickly you turned into a real creepy bastard to a feminine voice when you felt you had social permission to. That's real weird.

disambiguation 1y ago

You're nice to AI for your own well being. I'm nice to AI so they spare me when they eventually become our overlords. We are not the same.

raducu 1y ago
> You're nice to AI for your own well being. I'm nice to AI so they spare me when they eventually become our overlords. Ahh, the full spectrum of human motivation -- niceness for the sake of it, fear and let me add my machiavellianism -- I think being polite in your query produces better results.

lupusreal 1y ago

Yes, if you're communicating with a human language it pays off to reinforce, not undermine, good habits of communication.

brap 1y ago

When coding with LLMs, they always make these dumb fucking mistakes, or they don't listen to your instructions, or they start changing things you didn't ask it to... it's very easy to slip and become gradually more rude until the conversation completely derails. I find that forcing myself to be polite helps me keep my sanity and keep the conversation productive.

satisfice 1y ago

The study is not about cruelty, but rather politeness. Impoliteness is not anything like cruelty. Meanwhile, there is no such thing as cruelty toward a machine. That’s a meaningless concept. When I throw a rock at a boulder to break it, am I being cruel to that rock? When I throw away an old calculator, is that cruelty? What nonsense. I do think it is at the very least insulting and probably cruel and abusive to build machines that assume an unearned, unauthorized standing the social order. There is no moral basis for that. It’s essentially theft of a solely human privilege, that can only legitimately be asserted by a human on his own behalf or on behalf of another human. You don’t get to insist that I show deference and tenderness toward some collection of symbols that you put in a particular order

Al-Khwarizmi 1y ago

Yes. I tend to be polite to LLMs. I admit that part of the reason is that I'm not 100% sure they're not conscious, or a future version could become so. But the main reason is what you say. Being polite in a conversation just feels like the right thing to me. It's the same reason why I tend to be good to RPG NPCs, except if I'm purposefully role playing an evil character. But then it's not me doing the conversation, it's the character. When I'm identifying with the character, I'll always pick the polite option and feel bad if I mistreat an NPC, even if there's obviously no consciousness involved.

zmgsabst 1y ago
I think we can look at examples: People who are respectful of carved rocks, eg temple statues, tend to be generally respectful and disciplined people. You become how you act.
apercu 1y ago
That simply means you were raised right. :)

Freak_NL 1y ago

Computers exist to serve. Anthropomorphising them or their software programming is harmful¹. The tone of voice an officer would use to order a private or ranking to do something seems suitable — which obviously comes down to terse, clear, unambiguous queries and commands. Besides, humans can switch contexts easily. I don't talk to my wife in the same way I do to a colleague, and I don't talk to a colleague like I would to a stranger, and that too depends on context (is it a friendly, neutral, or hostile encounter?). 1: At this point. I mean, we haven't even reached Kryten-level of computer awareness and intelligence yet, let alone Data.

lupusreal 1y ago
> tone of voice an officer would use to order a private Most people probably don't have the mental aptitude to be in that sort of position without doing some damage to their own psyche. Generally speaking, power corrupts. Militaries have generally come up with methods of weeding people out but it's still a problem. I think even if it's just people barking orders at machines, it has the potential to become a social problem for at least some people. As for anthropomorphising being bad, it's too late. That ship sailed for sure as soon as we started conversing with machines in human languages. Humans already have an innate tendency to anthropomorphize, even inanimate objects like funny shaped boulders that kind of look like a person if you squint at it from an angle. And have you seen how people treat dogs? Dogs don't even talk. Maybe it's harmful, but there's no stopping it.
raducu 1y ago
> Anthropomorphising them or their software programming is harmful¹. LLMs are trained on internet data produced by humans. Humans tend to appreciate politeness and go to greater lengths answering polite questions, hence the LLMs will also mimic that behavior because that's what they're trained on.

1970-01-01 1y ago

Saying thank you to a plant for growing you a fruit is strange behavior. Saying thank you to a LLM for growing you foobar is also strange behavior. Not doing either is not degrading behavior of the grower.

mkmk3 1y ago
Disagree wrt practicing gratitude towards resources consumed and tools utilized. Maybe it doesn't degrade you if you don't but I think it gives a bit more perspective
- 1970-01-01 1y ago
  I think we agree on this if you agree that practicing gratitude in life and directly practicing it on non-sentient objects are not the same thing. Going to church to pray, going to therapy, practicing mindfulness, etc. isn't the same thing as seeing each grape growing on a vine as an anthropomorphic object. Don't anthropomorphize your lawnmower.
  - blittle 1y ago
    You also don't communicate with human language to your lawnmower to get it to work.
    - 1970-01-01 1y ago
      Actually..you do. https://www.agrieuro.co.uk/robot-lawn-mowers-manageable-with-alexa-c-59-k-1688_1.html https://www.agrieuro.co.uk/robot-lawn-mowers-manageable-with...
lupusreal 1y ago
Many hunters say thank you to animals they just killed. Strange, or respectful. Depends on your perspective and cultural context. LLMs are bound to change society in ways that seem strange to people stuck in outdated contexts.
1y ago

specialist 1y ago

Agreed. When asked if they observed etiquette, even when alone, Miss Manners replied (from memory): "We practice good manners in private to be well mannered in public." Made quite the impression on young me. A bit like the cliché: "A person's morals are how they behave when they think no one is watching."

wyclif 1y ago

A lot of wisdom and virtue in this comment; I appreciate that.

swat535 1y ago
Reminds of the elderly woman adding "please" to her queries in Google: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/16/grandmother-nan-google-praises-search-thank-you-manners-polite https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/16/grandmother-...

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]