27-04-2025
Don't forget to say ‘thank you' the next time AI helps you out
'Good manners cost nothing,' as the more ferocious type of old-fashioned nanny was fond of saying. But old-fashioned nannies had yet to encounter artificial intelligence (I'm sure the current generation of trainee Norland nannies are all over it), where good manners are anything but free.
Last week, Aleks Krotoski, the social psychologist and co-presenter of Radio 4's The Artificial Human, discussed the response from Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, to a question posted on X, wondering how much money the company lost in electricity costs from people saying 'please' and 'thank you' on ChatGPT. The answer, Altman suggested, was: 'Tens of millions of dollars well spent – you never know.'
The response was tongue-in-cheek, but the dilemma real. On the one hand, a simple exchange of courtesies with a chatbot, such as one has countless times a day with fellow humans – 'thanks', 'you're welcome' – uses processing power, and thus electricity and water. The cost – not to mention the impact on the environment – of all those momentary courtesies to a non-sentient being is eye-watering.
But so, too, is the impact on our emotional environment of eschewing politeness. Krotoski had previously studied what happened when people were rude to their virtual assistants – and it wasn't good news. Potential friends and partners, witnessing an individual's boorish interaction with their smart speaker, assumed that they'd eventually come in for the same treatment and tended not to stick around.
Across society, courtesy has become a currency with a very low value. In politics, in classrooms, and in sport both professional and amateur, the mostly consequence-free social-media pile-ons of spite and rage have leached into everyday discourse, tainting it with snark and aggression.
The problem can feel overwhelming – in gloomy moments, it can seem that the Yahoos have already inherited the earth. But, happily, the solution is in our own hands. In challenging times, courtesy is often the first casualty of anxiety. But politeness, like measles, is catching; and it takes only a modest effort to start a local epidemic. As for the immense cost in energy, water and emissions of AI data centres – that's something that we should raise with the tech bros of Silicon Valley. Politely, of course.
We should appreciate the skill and artistry required to prune fruit trees
The pruning of fruit trees is a difficult matter. Any larrikin with a chainsaw and an extendable lopper can mangle (or, as in the egregious recent case of the ancient Enfield oak, all-but eliminate) an overgrown tree. But fruit trees are different.
Last summer, I moved to a new garden in Kentish orchard country, complete with unruly apple and pear trees. In late winter, I attended a pruning course at the heart of British fruit-growing: the National Fruit Collection at Brogdale Farm, near Faversham. There, I learnt that pruning is an art as well as a science. And that a one-day course didn't qualify me to start hacking away at my trees.
The search for someone to undertake the pruning proved harder than I expected. There are plenty of local tree surgeons, but a distinct shortage of people willing to tackle fruit trees. Eventually, I asked Brogdale for advice and in due course a brace of experts appeared.
They set about my wormy Bramley, scabby Conference pear and a row of overgrown espaliers with the concentrated tenderness of the Repair Shop artisans restoring a beloved but decrepit heirloom. I overheard them debating which limbs to take off the apple tree, the better to improve its 'flow'. The overgrown espaliers turned out to be a random run of different trees. Out came several adolescent plums, leaving a lone apple, pruned to an elegant open-centred goblet shape.
Watching them work was fascinating, in the way that watching anyone highly skilled, from the stonemason-restorers of Notre-Dame to expert hedge-layers, is fascinating. Part of you thinks, 'I could learn to do that,'while another part knows that you should have started several decades ago.
I am left with three beautifully pruned fruit trees, a neat pile of trimmings that will provide pea sticks and firewood for several years to come, and a glimpse into a world of practical artistry that it might, even now, not be too late to explore.
