British Government Draft Guidelines for the Use of AI: Say less "thank you" to AI to save energy and reduce consumption

The British government reminds people to make good use of AI and streamline questions to reduce energy consumption. (Drawing by this newspaper)

[Finance Channel/Comprehensive Report] If you usually use AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, will you get used to saying "please" and "thank you" to AI? The British government's latest draft guidelines for the use of AI remind civil servants that there is no need to be too polite when interacting with AI. Unnecessary text such as "thank you" also requires computational processing, which not only increases computing power consumption, but may also bring additional energy and environmental costs. The guide therefore recommends that when using AI, prompt words should be shortened and unnecessary dialogue should be reduced, and lighter AI models should be given priority for simple tasks.

As generative AI enters the workplace in large numbers, even "courtesy" with AI may be re-examined. Tom's Hardware reports that the British government has released a draft guideline called "Using AI ethically and sustainably", hoping to help government employees use artificial intelligence more safely, fairly and sustainably.

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One of the most eye-catching suggestions is that users do not need to say "thank you" to AI chatbots.

The reason is not that AI doesn't care about politeness, but that every input and reply requires computing resources. The guidelines point out that in order to improve efficiency, unnecessary words should be avoided when using AI, including polite words that have no actual function, and prompt words should be kept as short and clear as possible.

In addition to "less polite words," the British government also reminded civil servants that not every job requires the use of the most powerful AI model, but that appropriate tools should be selected based on the complexity of the task.

For example, the guide states that when dealing with simpler tasks, you can use Gemini Flash instead of Gemini Pro, which requires higher computing requirements; when using GPT, you can also choose GPT Instant instead of GPT Thinking, which requires more inference operations.

One of the considerations behind this is the environmental cost of AI. The operation of generative AI relies on data centers and a large number of computing devices. The more content the model processes and the higher the computing requirements, the energy required will also increase. Therefore, shortening prompts, avoiding unnecessary back-and-forth conversations, and selecting appropriate models according to the task can all help reduce unnecessary resource consumption.

The guide also reminds that each government department should still abide by its own AI policies, and some units may have other regulations on the AI ​​tools that can be used and how they are used.

It is worth noting that this guideline is still a draft and has not yet been officially finalized. Therefore, rather than saying that the British government "forbids" civil servants from saying thank you to ChatGPT, it is more accurate to say that the draft recommends that civil servants reduce unnecessary AI interactions and develop more efficient and computational resource-saving usage habits.

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