I used to yell at Alexa for sport — a little cognitive boxing match where I win by being louder. Recently I got a 6th-gen Echo Dot and, surprise, it still isn’t sentient. It’s the same dim little parrot it always was: glitches, timing issues, and zero appreciation for my sarcasm.
Here’s the thing: politeness with AI isn’t about flattering a machine. It’s practice. When you say “please” to a device, you’re training yourself to slow down, enunciate, and not rage-tap the world. Those tiny pauses turn into clearer commands — and occasionally a better response.
Bonus: it’s literally baked into how these systems learn. Many assistants get tuned with human feedback and curated training data where phrasing, tone, and clarity matter. Polite, well-formed prompts often map to better model behaviour in training and in the wild. So you get better results and you teach the system — win-win.
Also remember there’s a human team on the other side who reads logs, ships fixes, and could use fewer keyboard temper tantrums. So breathe. Try “please.” It won’t make Alexa a philosopher, but it might save you a few muttered expletives and buy the devs a little mercy. And if you’re trying to be decent in the meatworld, consider this practice.