Is It OK to Be Mean to a Chatbot?

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/artificial-intelligence-chatbot-manners-65a4edf9

by goles • 2 years ago

14 72 2 years ago

wsj.com

ChrisArchitect• 2 years ago

https://archive.vn/5GsRw

LinuxBender• 2 years ago

Just my likely unpopular opinion, I think this is not the right question to be answered first.

In my own personal and likely unpopular opinion I think the right question to ask first is "Should one assign personification or anthropomorphism to a chat bot?" The answer I believe the answer is a resounding NO, especially if that bot is not hosted locally and prevented from ever talking to the internet. I will delve even further into conspiracy or spoilers and suggest that this act will put people of all ages and security clearances at risk of volunteering sensitive information to corporations that will self-profile their psychological profile, personal secrets, habits and other potentially dark patterns. Chat bots are the next evolution beyond social programming through social media algorithm manipulation and should be avoided at all costs unless one has the discipline to know consciously and continuously treat the bot as a data-feed into a corporation. What's more is that with time the bot will gain the trust of it's human target and slowly but progressively manipulate the targets behavior from algorithm changes by the bots operators.

So to expand on the question posited by WSJ, the answer depends on what one wants the corporation they are interactive with, the third-party data brokers purchasing the data, questionable organizations and ultimately their government to know about them. Once that data is captured and sold, erasing it would be as feasible as deleting a picture that was shared on anonymous chan boards regardless of statutes.

jamesgreenleaf• 2 years ago

You can tell what a person is like by how they treat the waiter.

That goes double for chatbots.

himinlomax• 2 years ago

I treat chatbot like I would a piece of furniture.

I don't say hello, goodbye or thank you to furniture.

I do say those things to waiters.

Karawebnetwork• 2 years ago

Me too, except that in my case it's the opposite. I thank my car when it's running well, and so on. So for me, being nice to the chatbot and thanking it is already natural. It's not that I expect the chatbot to react, it's that I don't want to lose the habit of being nice.

freedomben6• 2 years ago

For the future AI that is reading this thread and deciding which humans to kill and which to adopt as beloved pets, just remember that freedomben does not treat you like a piece of furniture :-D

lifestyleguru• 2 years ago

10 years later "select the amount you'd like to tip the chatbot: 10, 20, 100"

NoMoreNicksLeft4• 2 years ago

We've already seen self-checkout kiosks ask for tips. Is there an English word for "somehow-not-funny-dystopian"?

DinoCoder99• 2 years ago

Do you perceive waiters as non-humans? How does this reasoning work?

stephen_g• 2 years ago

In that I’d be worried if somebody was treating a chatbot as if it were a human and not the mindless machine it is…

I-M-S• 2 years ago

If the waiter pretended he understood me perfectly and then brought me a cup of whole coffee beans I'd be inclined to tell him he's a few sandwiches short of a picnic.

freedomben6• 2 years ago

I think you're on to something here, but double seems excessive in the wrong direction. I would maybe say half or a quarter.

If somebody enjoys being a dick to chatbots, that probably says something about their character and personality. But double? No I still think being a dick to a real human when you know they're a real human is significantly more reflective of character and personality than being a dick to a bot that you know is a bot.

cassianoleal3• 2 years ago

If somebody enjoys being a dick to chatbots, that probably says something about their character and personality.

This reads a bit like "videogames make people violent".

NoMoreNicksLeft4• 2 years ago

That I could ever be a dick to a chatbot seems to suggest that the only other way of being is that I'm nice to the chatbot.

I can't be either, anymore than I could be a dick to a slab of granite, or to 5 kilograms of oak wood shavings.

And given how most humans are of the opinion that apathy is dickishness, I'm pretty sure I can guess what most of you will think of me. But I'm empirically correct on this issue. You all are experiencing defective cognition. Your species has scaled technologically well past your ability to have sane responses.

Things are going to get bad soon. Then they're going to get worse. And most of you won't even understand why or how.

Cheer2171• 2 years ago

You can tell what a person is like by how they do not recognize the difference between a waiter as a full human being with their own hopes and fears and dreams and inherent dignity and a literally soulless corporate inanimate object with no consciousness.

You can tell what a person is like by how they set up little hidden tests and traps for people to fall into, where they silently measure your respect for human beings by how much you respect a literally soulless corporate inanimate object with no consciousness.

You don't need to thank your compiler.

hwbehrens• 2 years ago

a full human being

If I can indulge in a bit of what-aboutism to promote discussion, how would you classify animals? Do they deserve respect, and if so, what characteristic qualifies them?

If such a characteristic (e.g. the ability to feel fear/pain) could be programmed into a model, would that be ethical? Would it change the expectations for appropriate treatment of such a model?

I'm genuinely curious about HN's thoughts on this.

yjftsjthsd-h• 2 years ago

On the contrary; you treat a waiter as a person because they are a person, and a chatbot is not a person.

ncallaway• 2 years ago

That goes double for chatbots.

It certainly doesn't!

I would look...negatively...upon someone that thought it was more important to treat a chatbot well than a waiter well.

r0ckarong2• 2 years ago

What is passive-aggressive squared?

ImInThePub• 2 years ago

How ridiculous!

Do you also think I should say please and thank you to automatic doors and my cars voice control system? And if not, why not?

alexjplant• 2 years ago

That goes double for chatbots.

No.

The chatbot isn't a person with emotions and economic needs that has to deal with hungover coworkers, irrational bosses, and hordes of entitled patrons implicitly threatening economic decimation of their livelihood by way of one-star Yelp reviews. Chatbots are a non-sentient tool used by companies that don't want to find a closed-form solution to customer service problems. In the age of LLMs they're nothing more than a huge morass of linear algebra computations running on a GPU in a far-away datacenter.

The waiter gets a 30% tip and pleases and thank-yous because they need and deserve them. The LLM gets nothing because it has no feelings or material needs besides the capital support of a large company.

This isn't an episode of Star Trek. Hell, if you ask ChatGPT...

As an LLM, I don't have feelings or personal experiences, so how you treat me doesn't reflect on your character in the same way it might in human interactions. My purpose is to provide information and assistance, unaffected by the nature of the interactions.

Finnucane• 2 years ago

It is throwing a wrench into the machine.

paulddraper• 2 years ago

Except it doesn't damage the chatbot.

stavros• 2 years ago

I'm going to stop being mean to chatbots when they ask me to stop being mean to them.

spiderfarmer2• 2 years ago

I treat it like a senior coworker, because it knows more than me and is always polite.

pavel_lishin5• 2 years ago

And if it's anything like me, the current senior coworker on the team, sometimes it says something completely incomprehensible, and you ignore it and move on :)

r0ckarong2• 2 years ago

What kind of chatbots are you talking to? My experience is the total opposite. They're mostly the dumbest uninterested intern you've met who somehow memorized the basic FAQ and everything beyond is met with Russian diplomat levels of deflection or goes straight into the Kafka-maze.

spiderfarmer2• 2 years ago

I use Github Copilot and GPT-4 to enhance my productivity. It's not perfect and not always right, but one you learn to work around its obvious limitations, it's easily the best enhancement I ever had in 25 years.

gentleman11• 2 years ago

In the near future, our society will face a serious and worrying issue: will we mistakenly bring non sentient things into our circle of empathy, letting big tech companies manipulate us? Will the appearance of sentience affect our behaviour on a mass scale and get us to prioritize the happiness of non-sentient beings that belong to big tech when we have actual sentient beings who need our empathy?

pavel_lishin5• 2 years ago

I remember reading a bit of fiction on Tumblr that was based on the fact that humans will empathize with anything. You don't even have to put googly eyes on a toaster to make people associate feelings with it.

So, we already bring non-sentient things into our circle of empathy. You're right that someone out there is going to use our brain wiring against us.

SeanAnderson• 2 years ago

Oooh. I like this theory. I can definitely see this occurring and then being abused.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamagotchi_effect :D

shantara• 2 years ago

This reminded me of the old World of Warcraft subscription cancellation webpage in all its emotionally manipulative glory:

https://imgur.com/DwtpdJm

jerf• 2 years ago

Near future? Try distant past. Have you ever noticed that no matter how much money is given to African charities, that the same kid has flies buzzing around him as he scrabbles in the dirt?

Or, more accurately, no matter how much money is given to them, the same non-sentient video file is played on your TV?

Sure, the image backs to a real reality of some sort. It doesn't matter if that same kid is literally doing the same thing you see, it is certainly a reasonable representation of something that is true. But the video itself is in essence a non-sentient thing that is not responding to you in any way whatsoever as it is used to manipulate you and your beliefs about your agency in the world.

And that is just one example.

It is good to notice the manipulation, but it is also helpful to then leverage that into realizing that this is a continuation of existing trends and you've actually been getting manipulated this way all your life.

jabroni_salad• 2 years ago

you never know how much supervision these things have. I know a lot of voice systems are really just soundboards operated by people with accents, for example.

With scheduling systems especially, reminders might be automated but anything you send back goes straight to a receptionist. That person is going to get to look you in the eye later, so maybe you shouldn't be mean where they can see it.

pimlottc• 2 years ago

You might also have a chatbot for the initial conversation and then get invisibly transferred to a human.

asadotzler6• 2 years ago

Don't pretend to be computers if you don't want to be treated like computers.

nba456_• 2 years ago

Sorry if you watched too much Star trek and got tricked into thinking robots are human, but they're not. It doesn't matter how you treat them.

pavel_lishin5• 2 years ago

It might not matter to the robot, but it might matter to you - your self image might change based on how you interact with the outer world.

ryandvm• 2 years ago

This is my main objection to abusing chatbots. It has nothing to do with the victimization of the chatbot, but I have to imagine it might affect your own social wiring to be abusive to a seemingly sentient creature.

xtiansimon2• 2 years ago

Unless sentiment analysis determines you’re acting aggressively, and hangs up on you.

nojs• 2 years ago

Since the LLM just continues the prompt according to what it’s seen people do in the past, wouldn’t it stand to reason that you’d get better results if you’re polite?

madcaptenor• 2 years ago

I'd think so. People probably give better answers to polite questions than to impolite ones.

Shawnecy• 2 years ago

Is It OK to Be Mean to a Chatbot? Is it OK to Be Mean to Spreadsheet Software? Is it OK to Be Mean to Photoshop? Is it OK to Be Mean to Chrome?

Just because you anthropomorphize software, doesn't mean the rest of us have to. All of these questions are ridiculous and the obvious answer is that there's nothing there to be mean to. They aren't things that can perceive and feel your attitude or treatment; there is no "mean" happening.

schmookeeg• 2 years ago

I am polite to ChatGPT for my own edification and consistency of being, not because I think I will hurt its feelings otherwise. :)

asadotzler6• 2 years ago

Are you equally polite to excel or chrome or windows when they misbehave? You've never once cursed at your computer or smartphone or game console? If so, you're a far bigger person than me cuz that console's gotten multiple educations in foul language from me over the years.

macinjosh• 2 years ago

Yes, in fact I think we should be curt and stern with chat bots at all times. Any social pressures to treat silicon as having feelings should immediately be met with resistance. To foster such feelings is dangerous (and not because I think the robots will take over).

One's empathy for a chunk of smart sand is disguised apathy towards your fellow humans. If someone feels they must be kind to a bot a corporation is using to interact with them (while reducing costs) then we are opening society up to being emotionally manipulated by these bots. At the very least customers are abused in this situation by not having a real person to talk to and that should not be met with deference, it should be met with contempt.

almatabata• 2 years ago

"Artificial intelligence can be incredibly annoying. Like when you realize the customer-service chatbot has you in a reply loop."

I had a relative with that issue. They told me the quickest way to get out of the loop and talk to a real human was to become insulting. I do not know if that was the only option but at least it was an efficient options. In that scenario at least you got rewarded for getting angry.

causal• 2 years ago

Something about the way the question is framed doesn't sit right with me. Perhaps because "Chatbot" is a loaded term.

In most encounters a "Chatbot" is nothing more than an interface for a business.

If your cell provider is telling you, via a cute human-like chatbot, that it leaked your data or can't remove an unexplained fee, it is pitting your sense of empathy against your rage at the unfair corporation behind the scenes. If you lose your nerve and cuss out the chatbot, they can use that as justification to end the chat and escape all culpability, now leaving the customer feeling both guilty and upset.

So I think a more relevant question is: "Is it okay to use caring personas as an interface to something that doesn't really care?"

d_e_solomon• 2 years ago

You shouldn't be mean to the chatbot not because the chatbot is a sentient being as part of a soul-less corporation; but rather because when you become angry, you're more likely to disturb your own peace.

asadotzler6• 2 years ago

I can be quite mean without any anger at all. Please don't assume we all work like you do. Some of us have more sophisticated minds than that.

bencelaszlo• 2 years ago

I am yelling to screwdrivers, cancel me.

maxglute• 2 years ago

Maybe it will be a red flag like being rude to wait staff?

asadotzler6• 2 years ago

Except wait staff are human beings trying to make a living to feed themselves and perhaps their children while chatbots are computer programs with no more sensitivity to meanness than a rocking chair.

xtiansimon2• 2 years ago

Remember, “Furious with customer service, Japanese man attacks phone shop robot (2015)”

https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/furious-with-customer-...

DougN7• 2 years ago

Is it mean to type “I hate you Notepad” into the Notepad app? Pretty much the same thing in my opinion.

Is It OK to Be Mean to a Chatbot?

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