Pemerintah Inggris ingin orang bersikap kasar terhadap AI: 'Anda tidak perlu mengucapkan terima kasih'

The government of the United Kingdom is reminding its employees that they do not need to thank AI systems when they produce an output, even in cases where that output is correct. The helpful note is included as part of the government's guidelines on "using AI ethically and sustainably," and arises not out of a need to remember that these things are absolutely not sentient or "alive" in any way whatsoever, but simply because, well, they're horrifically expensive and bad for the planet.

The guidelines (via Tom's Hardware) are a draft document, and serve only as "a starting point to support your AI journey." And for the most part, it's common sense stuff: Check the outputs carefully to ensure they're accurate and unbiased, and don't provide any inputs that you don't want used for training purposes, because in all likelihood it will be.

There's also a note that you own, and are responsible for, the work: Multi-billion-dollar AI companies may be able to point the finger at "rogue agents" but career civil servants have no such escape clause.

But it's the "don't thank your AI" bit that really leaps out at me, one of three guidelines to using AI efficiently, "to reduce the environmental impact:

• Keep your prompts short, clear and direct
• Use as few prompts as possible (you don’t need to say thank you)
• Only use AI when needed

I used to sometimes thank the bank machine when it spat out my cash, a habit I would silently justify to myself with the thought that good manners are good to encourage. These days, though, I'm more of a Ron Swanson about the whole thing:

Frankly, I think 'recognizing the psychological dangers of anthropomorphizing LLMs' is probably the best reason for being rude to machines. But I am tickled that it's wound up in the 'efficiency' category instead.

Remember when 'Use AI or lose your job' was the big thing, so everyone was tokenmaxxing, but as costs began to skyrocket (and revenues did not), companies started ditching flat subscription prices in favor of pay-per-token models? Turns out that gets real expensive, real fast, and suddenly it's become very important to, as the UK government put it, "consider if a simpler tool could do the job (for example, a spreadsheet or search engine)."

As far as practical impact, I think that being discourteous to AIs will be about as useful as worrying about how a late-night drive to the store will affect my personal carbon footprint while we're annihilating Gaza and building pipelines across the continent. But as another tacit acknowledgement that maybe our reliance on AI isn't quite all it's cracked up to be? I wholeheartedly endorse it.