I'm found this incredibly interesting, especially since it's something I've been thinking about recently! I'd be curious to hear your take on whether or not you think the negative cumulative environmental impact of adding these cordialities outweights the benefits (LLMs are known to use a lot of energy and water, produce waste and carbon, etc.).
That's a difficult calculation. So much of our electricity, water, and fossil fuel consumption is arguably frivolous or unnecessary or just plain unconscionable. I am not sure where AI usage fits in the larger calculation, and the benefits of its use surely differ depending on the case. An AI used to identify cancer on an MRI scan? Probably worth it. An AI used to draw a funny picture of a cat, or saying "thank you" to ChatGPT, maybe not. But maybe? In terms of your personal, individual contribution to fossil fuel emissions, saying "thank you" to ChatGPT uses far less energy than running your clothes dryer. You can send over 2,000 queries to ChatGPT before reaching the energy consumption of one load of laundry. But again, this calculation depends on how the energy is supplied to both the dryer and the servers running the AI. And also how vital that dryer load or LLM query might be. There is no easy answer!
"...This means saying hello or politely asking ChatGPT to explain something to us and then thanking it for its effort.
But is this behavior really healthy?"
It's not ~un~healthy. It's called practice. No one wants to spend a lot of time thinking about whether something or someone is "thankable"--it would become exhausting. Easier to just than everyone/everything and be done with it.
I'm found this incredibly interesting, especially since it's something I've been thinking about recently! I'd be curious to hear your take on whether or not you think the negative cumulative environmental impact of adding these cordialities outweights the benefits (LLMs are known to use a lot of energy and water, produce waste and carbon, etc.).
That's a difficult calculation. So much of our electricity, water, and fossil fuel consumption is arguably frivolous or unnecessary or just plain unconscionable. I am not sure where AI usage fits in the larger calculation, and the benefits of its use surely differ depending on the case. An AI used to identify cancer on an MRI scan? Probably worth it. An AI used to draw a funny picture of a cat, or saying "thank you" to ChatGPT, maybe not. But maybe? In terms of your personal, individual contribution to fossil fuel emissions, saying "thank you" to ChatGPT uses far less energy than running your clothes dryer. You can send over 2,000 queries to ChatGPT before reaching the energy consumption of one load of laundry. But again, this calculation depends on how the energy is supplied to both the dryer and the servers running the AI. And also how vital that dryer load or LLM query might be. There is no easy answer!
"...This means saying hello or politely asking ChatGPT to explain something to us and then thanking it for its effort.
But is this behavior really healthy?"
It's not ~un~healthy. It's called practice. No one wants to spend a lot of time thinking about whether something or someone is "thankable"--it would become exhausting. Easier to just than everyone/everything and be done with it.