You mind your manners around voice assistants

Voice assistants are now a firm part of our daily lives. We regularly converse with them, whether barking commands or requesting information from the internet. However, it can often seem a little curt if you don’t say “please” or “thank you” during these chats.

To that end, we wanted to know from our readers if they feel the same way. We asked in this poll if they say these two magic words when chatting with Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri, or other assistants. Read on for the results.

Do you say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to voice assistants?

Results

Plenty of readers had something to say on this poll. We garnered over 5,500 responses since we first published it on September 30.

Unsurprisingly, our readers are a well-mannered bunch. Nearly a quarter (24.8%) of readers never forget to say “please” and “thank you” to their voice assistants. Notably, a similar number (23.9%) suggest the opposite, stating that they never use these words when talking to their devices. Interestingly, more than half of the respondents (51.3%) “sometimes” use these terms when talking to voice assistants.

Looking at readers’ comments, the usage of “thank you” is more common than “please,” as it doubles as a natural end to a command. Some also believe using these two words improves recognition systems. Using these words may also trigger otherwise hidden responses or Easter eggs.

There are plenty of comments on this one, so be sure to peruse the pick below.

Your comments

• Eric Braun: Please is a sometimes, thank you is more common because it cuts the listening for another prompt.
• Bishop: I always ask politely, because when the machines become self-aware and the robot overlords take over, they will remember that I was always kind to them. Lol.
• needa: Always be kind to a robot/AI. They don’t forget.
• PMOttawa: All the time without even thinking. And I suspect I’m not alone because Google Assistant has a specific response if you say thank you and you’re a Canadian. “Wow! It’s not for nothing they say Canadians are so polite.”
• Slappy Mcgee: I say Thank You to stop alarms and timers and when GS provides detailed/helpful information.
• Evie: As much as I would with a regular human. At some future point it will be indiscernible as to what is human and what is machine, so do we end up treating machines like humans or humans like machines?
• Brett: I don’t, what’s the point. If they were actually human then I would.
• Martin S Shepherd: I say those things to Google Assistant simply because I say them all the time as a normal speech pattern. I was taught to be polite. If I stop doing it at certain times I’ll likely forget to say those things at other times — like when I’m speaking to a human being. So, it’s better to maintain my good habits!
• Drone9: I don’t talk to objects. Maybe you do.
• Ajedi32: I don’t even speak in full sentences to assistant unless I need to. “Weather” works just as well as “Would you please tell me the weather outside?” so why waste time?
• daelos: I mostly swear at mine. Stupid thing never gets it right.
• Greg Harkay: I do if my 4-year-old is in earshot.

That’s it for this poll. Thanks for your votes and comments. If you have any thoughts about the poll results or the use of “please” and “thank you” with voice assistants, drop a comment below.