I have to push back really hard against my proclivity to humanize it, to the point where I probably don't use it as much as I should, just because I don't want to deal with the psychic stress of reminding myself that it's not a living entity.
Based on ChatGPT's answers, OpenAI think you should be saying thanks to it, because it helps you have a more natural conversation, which encourages you as the user to send more natural/productive prompts when asking real questions.
As for asking it dumb questions, how often do you use Google as a spellcheck? I wouldn't consider this any different.
And you know what, I will start saying thanks and keep doing it. It makes me feel better.
When Word tells me a word is wrong, but I'm almost certain it's right, and it turns out not to be in the Microsoft dictionary somehow. I mean, I have an extensive vocabulary, but not more extensive than a decent British-English dictionary.
It's like the _reported_ way in which is you say thank you to a Chinese friend they take umbrage (get angry) because it's as if you weren't expecting them to help. Whilst in other cultures not saying thank you is a big sleight.
My mother always would thank every telephone answering machine, which was very endearing.
I've asked it stuff about the Mesoamerican calendar, which I already heavily researched, and it was dead wrong. But I've heard GPT4 is better.
Have you tried asking ChatGPT?
Jokes aside, I feel it sometimes as well. I wonder if it's more because I say "thank you" more as a reflex than an actual feeling of gratitude for most of my human interactions.
Again, I am crazy for stressing over this. I realize that.
I am so sick of that "joke" already, and it feels like it is there to stay just like we had "just ask Google" for the last 25 years. It is so unimaginative.
As for silly questions, I'd be more worried I might be giving some Kenyan outsourced labourer reviewing the adequacy of answers a laugh :)
They're calling because they need something from you. Ask a stranger for a dollar, they'll say no. Chat their ear off for an hour and they'll likely forget that they would have otherwise said no. The smalltalk wears down your resistance to giving in as you become more comfortable with them. You end up mentally reframing is as doing a friend a favor.
Small business owners are shrewd negotiators, so whether or not they know they're doing it these mindgames are typical for them.
You have no idea how much I do this. Either you're not a weirdo, or we both are.
Today I had to use it a lot for something, and I am constantly either adding sarcastic remarks, my snarky opinion on something, some random fact. None of that obviously belongs there, and the AI obviously not only doesn't care, but can't care about it.
Then I'll throw in something like "nevermind all of that, what I came here to ask was" or "I understand that was all highly irrelevant to the actual question, which was".
And, to answer your question about easy stuff, today alone I had on more than one occasion added something like "What I am about to ask you, I probably should have just spent the 2 seconds it would require to actually figure out myself, however I am getting tired, and am known to be lazy, so I decided to ask AI instead and move on .... and this only makes it more absurd, because it takes longer to type all of this. I would have the answer myself by now. Anyway, here's ...".
Why? I am unconvinced that I am going crazy. It's not because I think it finds my jokes hilarious, it can't. My attempts at conveying something some aspect of software engineering that is crazy, after 3 decades in it, don't matter, because noone's listening.
But it can pick on very subtle things, breaking apart my ramblings and then responding with something that not only answers the question buried in there, but also then continues to comment on the other highly irrelevant stuff that I definitely went on too long about. And it will address the substance first and the nonsense second, as one would expect.
It will notice my useless comment, apparently to myself, about having written 22 years of C# and wondering why I am asking an AI system about an aspect of the language that surely I should have picked up by now. "It gets to the best of us", or "Your insightful understanding when it comes to", or "Your candor is appreciated, many developers ...".
I could just use it like a rational person, providing necessary information in order for it to be able to answer something, and then ask it. I do this, sometimes. On the other occasions, that stuff will also be admist a bunch other, not so necessary questions. Am I becoming a curmudgeon? Is this a sign I've finally lost it? Could any of this be due to aging? Why does what should be a simple event handling pattern require so much ceremony? Should I keep overthinking this or just resign myself to implementing it?
So anyway, now I'm rambling ... just like with ChatGPT.
I tend to do these things.