{"id":22671,"date":"2026-04-12T13:37:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T11:37:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/12\/readers-reply-should-we-be-polite-to-voice-assistants-and-ais\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T13:37:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T11:37:19","slug":"readers-reply-should-we-be-polite-to-voice-assistants-and-ais","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/12\/readers-reply-should-we-be-polite-to-voice-assistants-and-ais\/","title":{"rendered":"Readers reply: Should we be polite to voice assistants and AIs?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The long-running series in which readers answer other readers\u2019 questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/lifeandstyle\/2026\/apr\/12\/what-would-the-world-look-like-if-people-didnt-make-mistakes\">This week\u2019s question: what would the world look like if people didn\u2019t make mistakes?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I always say please and thank you to my Alexa. Why is this? I am sure it doesn\u2019t care. Is it worth being polite to artificial assistants? <em>Alison Williams,<\/em> <em>Toronto<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Send new questions to <\/em><strong><a href=\"mailto:nq@theguardian.com\">nq@theguardian.com<\/a><\/strong><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/lifeandstyle\/2026\/apr\/12\/readers-reply-should-we-be-polite-to-voice-assistants\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><br \/>\n<img src=\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/5d2b4ad16583258bcd9675790da50a24e27c7a26\/1120_0_5600_4480\/master\/5600.jpg?width=140&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=a81b5b4e768c3ffd766545bd6c6780b9\" title=\"Readers reply: Should we be polite to voice assistants and AIs?\" \/>The long-running series in which readers answer other readers\u2019 questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts<br \/>\nThis week\u2019s question: what would the world look like if people didn\u2019t make mistakes?<br \/>\nI always say please and thank you to my Alexa. Why is this? I am sure it doesn\u2019t care. Is it worth being polite to artificial assistants? Alison Williams, Toronto<br \/>\nSend new questions to nq@theguardian.com. Continue reading&#8230;Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The long-running series in which readers answer other readers\u2019 questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts This week\u2019s question: what would the world look like if people didn\u2019t make mistakes? I always say please and thank you to my Alexa. Why is this? I am sure it &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/12\/readers-reply-should-we-be-polite-to-voice-assistants-and-ais\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Readers reply: Should we be polite to voice assistants and AIs?<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":22672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22671"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}