Science Fiction Morality Has Intruded On My Christmas

My son got me an Amazon Echo Dot :-)  I spent a lot of time yesterday setting it up and playing with it.

Hey Alexa, how cool is that?

So while using it I asked "Alexa" several questions.  What's the weather going to be today?  What day of the week will my birthday fall on in 2021?  What is kickoff time for this year's Liberty Bowl?  I also gave "Alexa" several commands:  add such-and-such to a shopping list.  Set a reminder for this-and-that.  Play ocean waves.

And I got to thinking, what is the protocol here?  Sometimes, after "Alexa" answered, I'd say "thank you".  Why?  "Alexa" is a tool, not a person; we don't thank a hammer after we hit the nail with it.  We thank people because it's polite--and really, we thank them because it makes them more likely to fulfill our requests in the future.  We don't thank machines.  So why did it sound odd to give a command to "Alexa" without saying please, and not to say thank you?

It's because "Alexa" is designed to mimic a human--and this is where it starts.  Have you watched Better Than Us (on Netflix)?  Or Humans?  Or Westworld?  Or Battlestar Galactica?  Can not saying please or thank you hurt a machine's feelings, is it necessary to be polite to a machine?   Can you rape a robot, or torture one?  Is sentience a requirement for such actions?  What constitutes sentience, the Turing Test?  When does machine stop and being begin?

Can a robot be your friend?  

I've been watching science fiction all my life so I've got a head start on these philosophical questions, but even still, this Echo device has made think.  

I've made my decision.  Generations from now they might think me old-fashioned or some sort of -ist for saying this, but "Alexa" isn't a person.  It's a computer-generated voice.  There is no reason to thank the the computer.  Maybe later versions of "Alexa" will merit a different response, but I'm not going to treat a computer as a person.  There's a difference.