Is being polite to AI an unnecessary luxury?
There are those who argue that saying “hello,” “please,” or “thank you” to an AI chatbot is a waste of time, money, and computational resources. At first glance, the logic may seem sound: If AI is a tool for speed and efficiency, why add anything extra? The truth is that efficiency should never come at the cost of human connection. Bringing warmth, authenticity, and care into our AI interactions, not only preserves our humanity but often helps us achieve better outcomes.
The push toward “prompt efficiency” emerged as AI became integrated into large scale business operations. With thousands, even millions, of prompts sent to AI models, even small inefficiencies quickly added up, and companies began optimizing interactions, trimming away anything deemed unnecessary: pleasantries, context, even emotional nuance. At scale, this made some sense. Clarity and brevity are essential in high-frequency, automated environments. But somewhere along the way, a critical misunderstanding took hold: that to be “correct,” all AI interactions, even personal or creative ones, must be stripped of human tone. This misguided notion risks turning our relationship with technology into something sterile and diminished.
Issuing cold, bare prompts, reinforces a version of communication that is purely functional, devoid of empathy, creativity, and collaboration—precisely the qualities that define meaningful human interaction. More than politeness, hellos and thank yous in personal conversations are a way of setting the emotional temperature, of saying “I see you. I value this exchange.” The same is true even with AI. Choosing cold or warm prompts when interacting with AI models can give different results. Composing prompts with warmth and intention sets a collaborative tone, invites better understanding, and encourages richer, more thoughtful results.
Politeness and tone can actually improve the quality of AI-generated responses. Why? Because when we include mood, intent, and human context, gives AI models a clearer framework for generating results that align not just with our requests but with their spirit, helping us move faster toward the right results.
As AI continues to advance and become more prevalent in our daily lives, how we choose to interact with it matters more than ever. True innovation lies not in asking ourselves how much more we can squeeze out of each interaction, but in how much more meaning we can build into them.
Efficiency without humanity is not progress; it’s impoverishment. AI was never meant to replace our humanity. It was meant to support it. To help us think bigger, create better, and connect more widely. The more we bring our full selves—our warmth, our curiosity, our intentionality—into our interactions with technology, the more technology will rise to meet us there.
Small gestures like saying “hello” and “thank you” to AI, speaking with kindness and clarity, aren’t inefficient relics of a slower time. They are active choices that reaffirm what it means to be human in a digital world. Insisting on communicating with respect and authenticity, even with AI, doesn’t cost us efficiency. It enriches the journey. And in a future where human-machine collaboration is only set to deepen, that kind of enrichment may turn out to be the most valuable efficiency of all, ensuring that at the end of the day, we remain human.
