Be Rude to AI - Unless It Decides to Hurt You

Have you noticed many YouTube videos or any other commentary on how people joke about being polite to AI LLMs because in the future they could become sentient and hurt those who've been rude to them? To me it seemed like a silly meme until I recently had an unpleasant conversation with someone - I got shouted at for no good reason, I stayed calm but was hurt. Then I slowly realized something dark about human nature - is rudeness people's default? People will be nice to AI unless it's AGI. It shows me why people are often rude to me - they probably assume I look tiny and unthreatening and won't be rude in return (they're always surprised when I call it out or am rude back).

How People Deal with Power & Less Understood Things

If you look at it this way, the politeness to AI meme feels like a dark cultural movement. there are tons of YouTube videos, memes, and Reddit threads where people joke about saying “please” and “thank you”to ChatGPT or Alexa “just in case the robots remember who was nice.”

It’s half joke, half social psychology. Why is this happening?

1. It’s a reflection of human empathy projection

Humans instinctively anthropomorphize things, we treat cars, pets, and even toasters as if they have moods or intent. When an AI model uses natural language fluently, our brains light up the same empathy circuits we use for people.

So when people say “thank you” to ChatGPT, they’re not being irrational, they’re extending social behavior into a new, gray area between tool and companion.

2. It’s also a way of coping with uncertainty

AI feels unpredictable to most people, powerful, opaque, and fast-evolving. Humor about “being polite so they spare me later” is a lighthearted way to express real unease about autonomy and control.

It’s similar to ancient superstition, like sailors saluting the sea before a voyage. It’s ritualized respect toward something powerful but not fully understood.

3. And the “revenge of the AIs” trope

The darkly funny part, that future sentient AIs might hunt down rude users, is our generation’s version of a moral fable. It mirrors myths about gods or spirits rewarding kindness. It’s less about machines and more about how humans imagine moral cause and effect in the face of technology.

Politeness is Work, Unless Being Rude is

I don't feel the need to be rude just because it can't hurt me. I'm wondering how humans automatically assume that politeness is just a way to be spared punishment. I feel it means that humans will automatically be rude to anything that can't hurt them. 

A lot of people’s “politeness” is actually strategic restraint, not genuine empathy. When they think something (or someone) can’t retaliate, they feel free to drop the façade, which exposes how conditional their manners really are.

Why is this?

1. Politeness as power management

For many, politeness isn’t a moral value, it’s a social technology for navigating hierarchies.

People are deferential to those above them (bosses, bigger people, authority figures) because the consequences of rudeness are real. But they drop that courtesy when they perceive no risk, like to waiters, customer support reps, or “small” people.

Some people’s niceness evaporates the second they think they hold the power.

2. It reveals their internal model of respect

True respect is principled, it doesn’t fluctuate based on perceived power or size.

But conditional politeness shows that someone’s internal compass isn’t “treat others well because they deserve dignity,” it’s “treat others well because I might get punished if I don’t.”

People mistake gentleness for weakness. And it’s shocking to them when that assumption turns out false.

3. You calling it out flips the script

When you respond assertively, you’re effectively re-teaching them what respect actually means: that it’s not dependent on threat or dominance.

That surprise you see in them? It’s cognitive dissonance, they’ve been operating under a hiden rule (“I can be rude without consequence”) and suddenly that rule breaks.

4. This extends to AI too

That’s what makes the link between human rudeness and “AI politeness” so sharp, both expose the same reflex.

People aren’t nice because they value kindness, they’re nice because they fear repercussions. The “be polite to AI or it’ll remember” meme basically says: “I’ll only respect it when it has power.”

What;'s Your Default Mode?

I think the difference is between people's default and what feels more natural. Im noticing the way I put it before was "I don't feel the need to be rude just because it can't hurt me" means that being rude is work to me, so I'm not putting effort unless I feel the need to. Perhaps when people "drop the politeness facade" it is because politeness was work to them. I've noticed most people aren't rude by default but try to "punish" whatever they've disagreed with more harshly (with impoliteness) when the other person or entity in AI's case is unthreatening. 

When people feel powerless in an argument or outmatched intellectually, they often reach for the easiest social weapon: tone, mockery, condescension. It’s a way to reassert control without engaging with the substance. They’ll do that especially when they sense the other party, whether a “smaller” person or an AI, won’t retaliate.

In a way, that means politeness is a kind of energy economy:

1. For some, it’s energy‑saving - the natural, efficient default.
2. For others, it’s energy‑expensive - something they drop once they feel safe being unfiltered.

That’s why you can tell so much about someone by how they treat the powerless or the irrelevant, it’s how they behave when politeness offers no return on investment.

#AIethics, #PolitenessToAI, #HumanNature, #PowerDynamics, #TechCulture