Beep boop - this is a robot. A new show has been posted to TWiT…
What are your thoughts about today’s show? We’d love to hear from you!
Just a reminder that we had an in-depth discussion about the pros and cons of winter/summer time in this forum three years ago. Many of the points made then are still applicable!
With regards to the debate about whether or not to be nice to an AI; I was taught that you shouldn’t need a reason to be polite. You are simply because that’s the kind of person you want to be. Do I gain anything by thanking Siri for telling me when my next appointment is? Of course not, but I don’t lose anything either. I personally get weirded out when people ask why they should be nice to something if they don’t have to be. Are you only polite when someone spells out a reason for you to be? Would you be mean to me if there was nothing to lose?
Or to quote Nicepool - “Costs nothing to be kind”
Although for what it’s worth, if you say “thank you” to Siri that tells it the conversation is over and to stop listening.
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I won’t resurrect the old thread…
As we have it now, we don’t get sunrise until around 9am in January, and sunset around 4pm. In December, the day can be from 9am to 2:30pm. If we stuck with winter time, nothing would change, if we stuck with summer time for the whole year, it would be 8am to 1:30pm.
With summer time, the longest day is around 4:15am to 9:30pm (but actually still relatively light at 11pm). If we didn’t change the clocks, it would be 3:15am to 8:30pm and dark at 10pm.
As I get up at 5:30am and go to bed before 10pm, whether the sunrise and sunset are an hour earlier or an hour later doesn’t make much difference. But making the daily commute dangerous for twice as long (driving to/from work with a low sun) is surely a good reason to not change the time? (The change happens just as the sun has gone above the horizon during the morning commute for most office workers and then it is suddenly directly in front of them on the horizon again for an extra couple of weeks in Spring and Autumn.)
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I understand Mike’s point about not treating AI as a human being, however it’s important to keep in mind (especially with younger children) that courtesy and manners are habits that are learned. The habit of saying please and thank you is a good one, even if sometimes misplaced. After all - we say “good dog” or “good kitty” to our pets.
I also think as a typical child grows into a teenager and young adult - they will automatically figure out that the AI assistant is not necessarily a person. Neurodivergent children may need some guidance in this area, but neurotypicals should be fine.
But I come back to the notion that courtesy and manners are good things in and of themselves, regardless of where they are directed. So while I understand and get Mike’s point - I feel it’s misapplied in this context.
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