“Alexa, STOP!” — Are Robotic Personal Assistants Making Us Rude?
Social Etiquette in the Age of AI Personal Assistants
A few years ago, my 6-year-old cousin came over to our house for Thanksgiving. We’d just gotten an Amazon Alexa, my parents’ new favorite toy. And guess what the first thing my cousin said to Alexa when he first met it?
“Alexa, F**k!”
And subsequently fell over laughing. He was never allowed to curse at home. By this point, he’d learned that it was a “bad word.” I guess he decided Alexa could handle it, though.
The New Social Category
Humans as a species have the ability to comprehend very complex social structures. From the time we’re little, we can distinguish the “correct” social behavior for various situations, whether we’re at different locations (ie. house, school, work, etc.) or we’re with different people (ie. parents, friends, strangers, etc.).
In the coming century, robots will take on a social category of their own.
But wait… what does this mean?! 😬
I began to wonder — if people were rude to Alexa, would that translate to their interactions with others as well? What if they’re children and are still developing their social skills?
I reached out to developmental psychologists at Stanford and Cornell to ask this very question.
I found that personal home assistants are a new social category that may be treated similarly to servants. So even though kids might be rude to Alexa, they actually have a good intuition for when that’s appropriate.
Think back to vocal registers, for example. The high-pitched voice used to talk politely to adults vs. the slang used to talk to peers.
But does this still mean that we can be rude to Alexa?
So, How Should We Interact With Alexa?
Especially for children, it is still critical to ensure polite behavior towards robotic personal assistants. This is because it reinforces a routine of saying “please” and “thank you.”
At first, children are just imitating what adults around them are saying — so they don’t necessarily know what these words mean yet. They do understand, however, that there are certain situations where they have to be polite, and when they do, adults give them positive reinforcement.
So if children continued to practice these skills with robots, it would add to the number of opportunities they would have to practice polite behavior.
As a result, it’s also very important for parents to use “please” and “thank you” when speaking to Alexa in front of their kids. If a child hears their parents omitting these words, this may provide evidence that politeness is not always required in this situation.
Google’s Efforts to Mitigating This Behavior
In 2018, Google rolled out a “Pretty Please” feature that claims to help reinforce polite behavior through positive affirmations.
For example, after being asked, “Hey Google, please set a timer for 5 minutes.” The Assistant would reply: “Thanks for asking so nicely. Alright, 5 minutes. Starting now.”
However, this method had not been rigorously tested before. At Western Michigan University, they conducted a study that tested the effect of AI on children’s politeness by providing positive reinforcement for behavior using the Google Nest Hub.
Over five weeks with children aged 5 to 13, this study showed that there was not a significant increase in politeness. This is most likely due to the fact that politeness is more complex than merely including the words “please” and “thank you,” and also that politeness can be subjective among participants.
If Alexa was eventually complex enough to recognize this on a deeper level and was programmed to say “that hurt my feelings” when people were rude, perhaps that would cause people to become more polite.
Other Unintended Outcomes
Perhaps other factors such as the general feminine association (ie. Siri, Alexa → perceived as women) of robotic personal assistants may have effects on people’s perception of women.
For example, if personal assistants are seen as female (especially from a young age), this strengthens the association between women and “helpers.” This is impactful due to implicit bias, which Harvard psychologist Mahzarin Banaji demonstrates very well in this video. Could this cause people to become more disrespectful towards women?
Another potential concern in the future could be the impact of “fake news” on these home robots. If children were to add robots to their list of trusted sources, this could cause harm in the case that robots were preaching false information. Hopefully, this will not be the case — but it is something to be aware of.
Conclusion
Perhaps my cousin saw Alexa as an “imaginary friend” of some sort and saw it as a testing ground for social behavior…
In general, we should not be concerned that Alexa will make us ruder. Currently, we don’t fret if kids tell a dog to “sit” without saying “please.” We do, however, get worried if kids sit on the dog to cause them discomfort or pain. There are different sets of social rules for various types of relationships.
It will be interesting to see how AI and robots are incorporated into the social dynamics of tomorrow!
💡 TL;DR
- No, being rude to Alexa does not directly translate to being rude in general towards people.
- However, adults should still model polite behavior towards robots in front of children to reinforce a routine.
- Google has rolled out a “Pretty Please” feature that uses positive reinforcement to get people to be more polite. But this has not been backed up by research.
- There still may be unintended social consequences as a result of having robotic personal home assistants around, such as their feminine association or the potential for spreading fake news.
