Why I say «please» to Siri
Chances are that you increasingly often find yourself having a natural language interaction with an AI, in the form of Siri, Alexa, a chatbot, through the rapidly growing phenomenon of robocalls, or other systems. Do you then consider the need for treating the machine at the other end with respect, or are the interactions more about you giving commands, in any shape and form, and the AI delivering?
A 2017 analysis showed that almost all Android and Apple OS phone owners have tried their respective voice assistants, while the rate of “stickiness”, how many people keep using the service over time, still remains low.
With improvements in natural language processing and AI in general, as well as the rapid development of Internet of things, this will change. As an indicator about progress, we just learnt that Amazon currently is hiring 2000 people at the company’s new Boston Seaport facility, to work mainly with Alexa voice-activated technology.
I am convinced that within a few years, it’ll fall naturally for most people to have conversations with their computers (including of course the computer in their phone, but also those in their TV, fridge, jacket, car, and all other stuff soon to get online). And within a generation (of humans, many more for processors), I can imagine that most of our daily life conversations might in fact be with AIs, not with other humans.
We are therefore all pioneers in the field of human-machine interface. As other settlers, we have the opportunity to shape the new land for the future. With that power comes great responsibility. If we start off on the wrong track, it’ll take time and effort to move to the right one.
It all starts with our children. Amazon obviously knows that. The tech giant will soon be shipping its Echo Dot Kids Edition. The goal is probably not just to sell those extra devices, but to make the future adults more comfortable and sophisticated with the voice control technology.
How will this kind of interaction with artificial intelligence and automation affect how children behave and what they think about computers? Do we risk turning kids into “jerks because many of these interactions compel you to order the technology around?” After all, due to the current limitations in voice recognition and language processing, the more direct and “rude” your commands are, the more likely is it for the AI to understand and reply correctly.
Or, could the assistants in fact help our children build social skills, as Cynthia Breazeal, one of the researchers behind a recent MIT study (and the director of the Personal Robots Group at MIT’s Media Lab), proposes? If so, that could make a positive change from what we see today: “a lot of bad behavior when we interact with each other using technology”. By humanising the interface, maybe tech will become less abstract and therefore a less legitimate arena for saying things that we’d never say directly to other humans?
For me, I try to be a nice person. Even though the word “please” isn’t hard-wired into my native Norwegian language as it is in English, I try to use it often, along with “may I”, “thank you”, and “sorry”. It doesn’t matter if I’m talking to a colleague, a family member, some stranger on the street, my dog, or the voice assistant on my phone. I simply try to be respectful and a good example for others, not least for my children. I therefore appreciate the though behind the “Magic Word” feature in the Echo Dots Kids, offering “positive reinforcement for using the word ‘please’ while asking questions.”
I also sympathize with Rachel Withers, who in the same article describes how she broke up with a boyfriend after he repeatedly shouted commands at another woman — Amazon’s Alexa.
“How you treat your digital assistant says a lot about you.»
So, please, say “please” — also to the AI. Not that they care, of course. We should be nice to robots, for humans’ sake.
Thanks to Michael Andor Brodeur @ The Boston Globe for inspiration.
