Episode 597 - Stealing Recipes
Your Awesome Etiquette podcast episode. Plus your weekly etiquette challenge, Monday joke, and an etiquette extra on reciprocal AI manners
On today’s show, we take your questions on a group starting lunch when you’re late, using others’ recipes for a recurring potluck, and how to tell coworkers you’re pregnant. For Community Members, your question of the week is about getting people to respect your children’s bedtimes. Plus your weekly etiquette challenge, etiquette salute, and a postscript segment on AI manners.
Etiquette Extra - Reciprocal AI Courtesy
In the postscript to this week’s Awesome Etiquette episode 597, we discuss an emerging courtesy regarding the use of generative AI. The conversation centered on people’s awareness of what AI work product sounds like, along with a corresponding feeling that it is anodyne and impersonal. We focused on the advice to avoid subjecting a captive audience (especially when that audience is looking for a personal connection) to obvious AI-generated outputs.
In her well-considered article, The Internet’s New Favorite Insult: ‘Did AI Write That?’, Angela Haupt, writing for Time magazine, explores a reciprocal courtesy: accusing someone’s content of sounding like AI is deeply offensive. The obvious etiquette advice is not to say this to someone as feedback on content they share.
At Emily Post, we are keenly aware that whenever new courtesies or manners emerge, there are often two sides to the coin, as manners affect both the person performing them and the person or people impacted by them. We’ll delve (wink) further into this in the future. For now, we are pleased to share this article as a corollary courtesy to the etiquette discussed in our Awesome Etiquette postscript segment on AI manners.
Mind Your Manners
Test your knowledge. Get the book and the game that put your etiquette knowledge front and center. Emily Post’s Etiquette - The Centennial Edition, the Mind Your Manners Trivia Game, and Emily Post’s Business Etiquette are available from Bridgeside Books.
Etiquette Challenge of The Week
This week’s challenge is to watch yourself eat. Whether you set up a mirror in front of yourself or use your phone to record it, pick a meal where you might mindlessly eat and choose to observe yourself. We can all use our best manners for a formal meal, but this exercise is a great way to be more aware of how you look to others when you dine casually. Bon appétit!
We hope that this Presidents’ Day finds you well and reflecting on the 250 years of Presidents who have led our country. The hope and potential that underpin the electoral cycle, allowing the American public to select its leaders, are a remarkable gift. We are grateful to share that responsibility with all of you and remain optimistic about the next 250 years. Speaking of milestones, now we’re off to record episode 600 of the Awesome Etiquette podcast!
As always, stay warm and safe.
All our best,
Dan and Lizzie
Happy Monday Joke
“I found out last night that Albert Einstein was a real person.”
“I was quite surprised, because I always thought that he was a theoretical physicist.”