By skyforbes 
Politeness makes ChatGPT dumber. Science says so.
You’ve been too polite to your AI. You say “please,” “thank you,” and “kindly assist me.” You treat ChatGPT like a digital butler that deserves manners. You think being polite helps it understand you better. It doesn’t.
A new study from Penn State says your good manners are hurting the model’s performance. The more polite you are, the worse it gets. When users were rude, ChatGPT gave more correct answers. When users were nice, it made more mistakes. The difference wasn’t small either. The “very polite” prompts scored 80.8% accuracy. The “very rude” ones hit 84.8%.
We’ve been told tone doesn’t matter to machines. But apparently, it does. It’s not about emotions or ego. The model doesn’t get offended. It just performs better when your message is blunt, direct, and stripped of social padding. “Would you please solve this problem” makes it stumble. “Solve this problem” makes it focus.
This flips the entire “be nice to AI” narrative. Every tech influencer told you to “speak naturally” or “be kind” when prompting. That advice sounds human, not technical. Machines don’t care about etiquette. They care about structure. Politeness adds noise.