Should you be nice to chatbots?

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/should-you-be-nice-to-ai-chatbots-such-as-chatgpt/

The answer is yes, at least according to one recent study. Using polite prompts, the authors found, can produce higher-quality responses from a large language model. But there’s a point of diminishing returns; excessive flattery can cause a model’s performance to deteriorate.

AI gives out what you put in. Polite prompts may direct the system to retrieve information from more courteous, and therefore probably more credible, corners of the Internet. A snarky prompt could have the opposite effect, directing the system to arguments on, say, Reddit.

"It’s about you,” she says. The danger, in her view, is that we might become habituated to using crass, disrespectful and dictatorial language with AI and then unwittingly act the same way with other human beings.