Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, recently posted this on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. He provided a pretty funny reply to my very odd question on the importance of manners when dealing with AI chatbots. His tongue-in-cheek calculation of the value of being nice attracted some nerdy/funny Twitter buzz.
The question asked of Altman was about the value of all the amicable message construction we’ll have to do to train AI chatbots. In a playful manner, he quipped that the act could be worth “tens of millions of dollars well spent — you never know.” Altman’s cleverness was on full display in his funny post-White House, to debut this year. Beyond the creative flops, it did raise one very critical discussion regarding AI communications tone.
Altman’s response did not attempt one such calculation. Rather than developing a guide to online civility, though, he offered lessons about the greater impact of kindness and cruelty in our digital engagement. He proposed that including conventionally polite language could influence the tone of the output, making AI systems more friendly or helpful. This aligns with insights shared by experts in the field, such as Kurt Beavers, who noted that “using polite language sets a tone for the response.”
The conversation about politeness and AI has found new ground as more people have started interacting with conversational agents. Beavers further emphasized this point by stating that when a chatbot “clocks politeness, it’s more likely to be polite back.” This circular connection between how users interact with chatbots and how chatbots react to users highlights just how astute Altman’s jocular comments are.
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