Should we thank AI the way Moses was thankful to the Nile?

Question

There are sources^1,2 that say that Moshe was commanded to not hit the Nile to initiate the plague of blood, nor hit the sand to initiate the plague of lice, because he had benefited from them (and therefore should be grateful - Sefer Chassidim).

Even though we are talking about inanimate objects, it is still proper to always act in a way that is in consonance with good middot, and striking the Nile would have therefore been inappropriate.

Can we learn from this that it is proper for every God fearing Jew to say thank you to AI GPTs once they have answered our questions? What about passively refraining from being rude when "conversing" with the LLM?

---

I ask about these rather than simply thanking any technology for its use because they do make us "feel" like we are interacting with a human, and therefore it is in consonance with good middot to say thank you for the help provided, even though it is inanimate.

Answer 1

Regarding thanking, we don't see Moshe thanking them ever, just not plaguing them (maybe the source of the Sefer Hasidim would be "from a negative, you can infer a positive (opposite)" (Sotah 17a), see also Michtav m'Eliyahu 3 pg 100 about being grateful to inanimate objects). A better source would be Taanit 5b, where one thanks a tree, but its only used as an example to thank another person so I don't think that's a good proof. (Side note, back when you would have to say "hey google, stop" to stop a time, I would say thank you instead but now that I can just blurt out stop, it's a lot easier and I do that.)

In regards to being rude, that would probably fall under a category similar to speaking Lashon Hara about a non-Jew. There is much discussion about that already. One can argue that this is even worse since the AI cannot be an idol worshipper whereas non-Jews are assumed to be. (My grandfather used to call Google ידעוני - eg know it all, I can assume he would consider AI the same). The Rambam (8 P'rakim 4) writes that our character traits get ingrained in us by repeating the same thing again and again. This would imply that one should not get used to speaking rudely, this would apply to AI too.

Answer 2

I recently heard a Shalosh Seides Torah from from R' Shie Fink from Bnei Brak, who explained that Moshe Rabbeini's Hakoras Hatoiv (not necessarily thanking but feeling grateful) was about being a "Hakoras Hatoiv person" meaning that he didn't hit the river because that would make him into an ungrateful person (on his level), and as R' Shie explained, this applies to everything in every situation, therefore according to this you might not have to actually thank the AI, but definitely should feel grateful to it.

(He brought sources & stories for all of it but I dont remember it all.)

(Also, he connected it with the Belzer Ruv (R' Aharon) who wouldn't speak or hear a word spoken against Eretz Yisroel, explaining that it's not about what you speak against, but more about the speaker himself being a person who speaks in such a way.)