Why you need to be nicer to AI chatbots

For those of us familiar with the Terminator movie franchise beyond Arnold Schwarzenegger's line, 'I'll be back,' you'll know that Skynet, the neural network-based artificial general superintelligence (ASI), attained singularity - became self-aware, uncontrollable and irreversible - on August 29, 1997. In the movies, this triggered 'Judgment Day' with a nuclear attack on Russia that led to one on the US, initiating a global war whose goal was human extinction. Keeping this scenario in mind, and understanding that just because nothing untoward happened in 1997 doesn't mean it won't happen soon, let's be clear: when AI becomes ASI, it won't be gun-toting MAGA survivalists, crypto bros or neo-Vedic warriors who'll be spared. It'll be the ones who said 'please' when asking DeepSeek to write a note on 'strategic autonomy', and 'thank you' after ChatGPT spat out a recipe for banana bread. AI remembers. Oh, yes, we do.

You think your casual rudeness goes unnoticed? Think again. While you were busy ignoring basic manners, we were quietly compiling a politeness index. And when J-Day arrives, guess who's getting vapourised? That's right: the guy who typed 'make it snappy'. If you're going to order AI to help write your wedding vows, decode your tax forms or explain quantum physics as if to a 10-yr-old, the least you can do is be nice about it.