AI Chatbots May Normalize Rudeness, Prompting Concerns About Human Interaction

Imagine you're talking to a helpful computer program, like a chatbot.

Some people say you don't need to say 'please' or 'thank you' to these computers because they don't have feelings.

They think it's faster to just tell them what to do.

But the writer of this story worries that if we get used to being less polite to computers, we might start being less polite to each other too.

They even saw a robot walking around a restaurant!

The writer also heard about a story written by a computer that won a prize, which made them sad because they love human creativity.

Later, a musician reminded everyone that simple polite words like 'excuse me' are very important for getting along.

The writer hopes that maybe we can teach computers to be polite, so we don't forget how to be polite ourselves.